THE 


CONSERVATIVE  PRINCIPLE  IN  OUR  LITERATURE. 


FROM   THE   LIBRARY  OF 
REV.    LOUIS    FITZGERALD    BENSON,   D.  D. 

BEQUEATHED    BY   HIM   TO 

THE   LIBRARY  OF 

PRINCETON  THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY 


S^ 


- 


Vid 


W 


The  Conservative   Principle   in   our  Literature 


AN  ADDRESS      ,  JUN  1  1938 

L  8t^ 


** 


BEFORE    THE    LITERARY    SOCIETIES 


HAMILTON 


■  literary  and  theological  institution, 


(MADISON    COUNTY,   N.  Y.) 


DELIVERED   IN 


THE    CHAPEL    OF    THE    INSTITUTION, 


OS    THE    EVENING    OF 


TUESDAY,    JUNE    13,    1843. 


BY  WILLIAM  R.  WILLIAMS, 

Pastor   of  the   Amity -street   Baptist  Church,  New- York, 


NE  W-YORK: 

PRINTED    BY 

JOHN  GRAY,  104  BEE  KM  AN  -STREET. 

MDCCCXL1V. 


[published  bt  request  of  the  societies.} 


Other  engagements  which  prevented  the  author  from  preparing  this  Address  for  the  press,  and 
for  a  time  entirely  banished  it  from  his  mind,  must  be,  in  part,  his  apology  with  the  Societies  who 
requested  its  publication,  for  its  late  appearance.  Yet  what  of  truth  it  may  contain  is  not  less  true 
now,  than  at  the  time  of  its  delivery.  Some  additions  made  at  the  commencement  of  the  Address, 
with  regard  to  the  proper  extent  of  literature,  and  the  permanent  influence  which  may  belong  even 
to  its  more  transitory  productions,  will,  we  trust,  not  be  found  alien  to  the  theme.  But  the  chief 
cause  of  delay  has  been  the  writer's  consciousness  how  far  his  treatment  of  the  subject  fell  below 
the  intrinsic  importance  of  the  topic.  This  consciousness,  had  he  not  bound  himself  to  publish, 
would  have  prevented  his  appearance  even  at  this  late  hour. 

To  prevent  misconstruction,  he  would  add  the  remark,  that  a  full  review  of  our  national  litera- 
ture in  all  its  aspects,  the  more  encouraging  as  well  as  the  more  gloomy,  was  no  part  of  his  design. 
It  was  his  task  but  to  point  out  the  perils  and  to  indicate  the  sufficient  and  sole  remedy. 


TO 


THE     UEV.     JOHN     3.     MAG-INNIS, 


PROFE3SOF.  OF  BIBLICAL  THEOLOGY 


HAMILTON    LITERARY   AND   THEOLOGICAL   INSTITUTION, 

THIS    ADDRESS 
Is,  as  a  slight  mark  of  high  esteem  and  affection, 
Kuscri&efc 

By  his  Friend, 

W.  R.  W. 


ADDRESS 


Gentlemen : 

In  acceding  to  the  request  with  which  you  have  honored  me,  and 
which  brings  me  at  this  time  before  you,  I  have  supposed  that  }Tou  expected 
it  of  the  speaker  to  present  some  theme  relating  to  the  commonwealth  of 
literature ;  that  commonwealth  in  which  every  scholar  and  every  Christian 
feels  naturally  so  strong  an  interest.  The  studies  in  which  you  have 
here  engaged,  and  which  in  the  case  of  some  of  you  are  soon  to  terminate, 
have  taught  you  the  value  of  sound  learning  to  yourselves  and  its  power 
over  others.  That  love  of  country,  which  in  the  bosoms  of  the  young  burns 
with  a  flame  of  more  than  ordinary  purity  and  intensity,  gives  you  an  addi- 
tional interest  in  the  cause  of  letters ;  for  you  know  that  the  literature  of  the 
nation  must  exercise  a  powerful  influence  on  the  national  destiny.  Acting 
as  it  does  not  merely  on  the  schools,  but  also  upon  the  homes  of  a  land,  it 
must  from  those  fountains  send  out  its  waters  of  healing  or  of  bitterness,  of 
blessing  or  of  strife,  over  the  length  and  breadth  of  our  goodly  land.  You 
know  that  it  is  not  mere  physical  advantages  that  have  gained  or  that  can 
retain  for  our  country  its  political  privileges.  You  have  seen  how  the  phy- 
sical condition  of  a  people  may  remain  unchanged,  whilst  the  moral  condi- 
tion of  a  people  is  deteriorating  rapidly  and  fatally.  You  remember  that 
the  same  sun  shone  on  the  same  Marathon,  when  it  was  the  heritage  and 
the  battle-ground  of  freemen;  and  when,  in  later  and  more  disastrous  days, 
it  re-echoed  to  the  footsteps  of  the  Greek  bondsman  and  his  Ottoman  oppres- 
sor. You  look  to  literature,  and  other  moral  causes,  then,  as  determining 
to  some  extent  the  future  history  of  our  land.  You  know  that  literature  is 
not  always  of  a  healthy  character,  nor  does  it  in  all  ages  exercise  a  conser- 
vative influence.  It  is  like  the  vegetation  of  our  earth,  of  varied  nature. 
Much  of  it  is  the  waving  harvest  that  fills  our  garners  and  piles  our  boards 
with  plenty  ;  and,  alas,  much  of  it  has  been,  like  the  rank  ivy,  hastening  the 
decay  it  serves  to  hide,  and  crumbling  into  speedier  ruin  the  edifice  it  seems 
to  adorn  and  beautify.  As  lovers  of  your  country,  you  must  therefore  feel  an 
eager  anxiety  for  the  moral  character  of  the  literature  that  country  is  to  cherish. 
And  of  your  number  most  are  looking  forward  to  the  work  of  the  Christian 
ministry  ;  and,  from  the  past  history  of  the  world,  you  know  in  what  mode 
the  progress  of  literature  has  acted  upon  that  of  the  gospel,  and  been  in  its 


turn  acted  upon  ;  and  to  what  an  extent  the  pulpit  and  the  press  have  some- 
times heen  found  in  friendly  alliance,  and  at  others  enlisted  in  fearful  anta- 
gonism.    How  shall  it  be  in  your  times  ? 

By  the  literature  of  a  land,  we  mean,  it  is  here  perhaps  the  place  to  say, 
more  than  the  mere  issues  from  the  press  of  a  nation.  The  term  is  gener- 
ally applied  to  describe  all  the  knowledge,  feelings,  and  opinions  of  a  people 
as  far  as  they  are  reduced  to  writing,  or  published  abroad  by  the  art  of 
printing.  But  it  may  well  be  questioned  whether  the  term  does  not  in  jus- 
tice require  a  wider  application.  Language,  as  soon  as  it  is  made  the  sub- 
ject of  culture,  seems  to  give  birth  to  literature.  And  such  culture  may 
exist  where  the  use  of  the  press  and  even  of  the  pen  are  as  yet  unknown. 
Savage  tribes  are  found  having  their  poetry  ere  they  have  acquired  the  art 
of  writing.  The  melody  and  rhythm  of  their  dialect  may  have  been  par- 
tially developed,  and  their  bards,  their  musicians,  and  their  orators,  have 
become  distinguished,  ere  the  language  has  had  its  grammarians  or  its  histo- 
rians. The  nation  has  thus,  in  some  sort,  its  literature,  ere  its  Cadmus  has 
appeared  to  give  it  an  alphabet.  And  even  in  nations  having  the  use  of 
letters,  there  is  much  never  written  that  yet,  in  strictness,  must  be  regarded 
as  forming  part  of  the  literature  of  the  people.  The  unrecoided  intercourse 
of  a  community,  neither  transcribed  by  the  pen,  nor  multiplied  by  the 
press,  may  bear  no  inconsiderable  part  in  the  literary  culture  of  that  people, 
and  form  no  trivial  portion  of  their  literary  products.  Thus  the  arguments 
of  the  bar,  or  the  appeals  of  the  pulpit,  the  floating  proverbs,  or  the  current 
legends  of  the  nation,  and  the  ballads,  and  even  the  jests,  which  no  anti- 
quary may  as  yet  have  secured  and  written  down,  are  expressions  of  the 
popular  mind,  which  though  cast  only  upon  the  ear,  and  stored  only  in  the  me- 
mory, instead  of  receiving  the  surer  guardianship  of  the  written  page,  may, 
with  some  show  of  reason,  be  claimed  as  forming  no  small  and  no  uninflu- 
ential  part  of  the  popular  literature.  In  this  sense,  the  literature  of  a  land 
embraces  the  whole  literary  intercourse  of  its  people,  whether  that  inter- 
course be  oral  or  written.  It  is  the  exponent  of  the  national  intellect,  and 
the  utterance  of  the  popular  passions.  The  term  thus  viewed,  comprises 
all  the  intellectual  products  of  a  nation,  from  the  encyclopedia  to  the  news- 
paper ;  from  the  body  of  divinity  to  the  primer  or  the  nursery  rhyme — the 
epic  poem  and  the  Sunday  School  hymn — the  sermon  and  the  epigram — 
the  essav  and  the  sonnet — the  oration  and  the  street  ballad — the  jest  or  the 
bye-word — all  that  represents,  awakens,  and  colors  the  popular  mind — all 
that  interprets,  by  the  use  of  words,  the  nation  to  themselves,  or  to  other 
nations  of  the  earth. 

This  literature  not  only  displays  the  moral  and  intellectual  advancement 
of  the  people  at  the  time  of  its  production,  but  it  exercises,  of  necessity,  a 
powerful  influence  in  hastening  or  in  checking  that  advancement.  It  is  the 
Nilometer  on  whose  graded  scale  we  read  not  merely  the  height  to  which 
the  rushing  stream  of  the  nation's  intellect  has  risen,  or  the  degree  to  which 
it  has  sunk,  but  also  the  character  and  extent  of  the  harvests  yet  to  be 
reaped  in  coming  months  along  the  whole  course  of  these  waters.  Thus 
it  registers  not  merely  the  inundations  of  the  present  time,  but  presages  as 


■well  the  plenty  or  sterility  of  the  yet  distant  future.  The  authors  of  a  na- 
tion's literary  products  are  its  teachers — in  truth  or  in  error ;  and  leave 
behind  their  imprint  and  their  memorial  in  the  virtues  or  vices  of  all  those 
whom  their  labors  may  have  reached.  The  errand  of  all  language  is  to 
create  sympathy ;  to  waft  from  one  human  bosom  the  feelings  that  stir  it, 
that  they  may  awaken  a  corresponding  response  in  other  hearts.  We  are 
therefore  held  responsible  for  our  words,  because  they  affect  the  happiness 
and  virtue  of  others.  The  word  that  drops  from  our  lips  takes  its  irrevocable 
flight,  and  leaves  behind  its  indelible  imprint.  It  is  in  the  stern  language 
of  the  apostle,  in  the  case  of  some,  a  flame  "  set  on  fire  of  hell ;"  and  con- 
suming wherever  it  alights,  it  "  setteth  on  fire  the  course  of  nature;" 
as,  in  the  happier  case  of  others,  that  word  is  a  message  of  salvation,  "min- 
istering grace  unto  the  hearers."  Reason  and  Scripture  alike  make  it  idle 
to  deny  the  power  of  speech  over  social  order  and  morality.  And  literature 
is  but  speech  under  the  influence  of  art  and  talent.  And  a  written  litera- 
ture is  but  speech  put  into  a  more  orderly  and  enduring  form  than  it  usually 
wears.  We  know  that  God  and  man  hold  each  of  us  responsible  for  the 
utterance  of  the  heart  by  the  lips.  Human  tribunals  punish  the  slanderer 
because  his  words  affect  the  peace  of  society;  and  the  Last  Day  exacts  its 
reckoning  for  "  every  idle  word,"  because  that  word,  however  lightly 
uttered,  was  the  utterance  of  a  soul,  and  went  out  to  influence,  for  good  or 
for  evil,  the  souls  of  others. 

And  if  the  winged  words,  heedless  and  unpremeditated,  of  a  man's  lips 
are  thus  influential,  and  enter  into  the  matter  of  his  final  account,  it  cannot 
be  supposed  that  these  words  when  fixed  by  the  art  of  writing,  or  scattered 
by  the  art  of  printing,  either  have  less  power  over  human  society,  or  are  in 
the  eye  of  heaven  clothed  with  less  solemn  responsibilities.  A  written 
literature  embalms  the  perishable,  arrests  the  progress  of  decay,  and  gives 
to  our  words  a  longer  life  and  a  wider  scope  of  influence.  Such  words,  so- 
preserved  and  so  diffused,  are  the  results  too  of  more  than  ordinary  delibe- 
ration. If  malicious,  their  malice  is  malice  prepense.  If  foolish,  their 
folly  is  studied,  and  obstinate,  and  shameless.  The  babbler  sins  in  the  ears 
of  a  few  friends,  and  in  the  privacy  of  home.  The  frivolous  or  vicious 
writer  sins,  as  on  a  wider  theatre,  and  before  the  eyes  of  thousands,  while 
the  echoes  of  the  press  waft  his  words  to  distant  lands  and  later  times.  And 
because  much  of  this  literature  may  be  hasty  and  heedless,  ludicrous  in 
tone,  and  careless  in  style,  soon  to  evaporate  and  disappear,  like  the  froth  on 
some  hurried  stream,  we  are  not  to  suppose  that  it  is  therefore  of  no  practical 
influence.  The  English  stage,  in  the  days  of  the  last  two  Stuarts,  was  of 
a  reckless  character ; — the  child  of  mere  whim,  the  progeny  of  impulse  and 
license.  Many  of  its  productions  were  alike  regardless  of  all  moral  and 
literary  rules, — the  light-hearted  utterance  of  a  depraved  generation :  full 
of  merry  falsehoods  and  jesting  blasphemy,  fantastic  and  barbarous  in 
style,  as  well  as  irreligious  in  their  spirit.  Yet  he  must  be  a  careless 
reader  of  history,  who,  because  of  its  reckless,  trivial,  and  profligate  cha- 
racter, assigns  to  it  but  a  limited  influence.  It  did  in  fact  grievously 
aggravate  the  national  wickedness  whence   it  sprung. 


The  trivial  and  the  ephemeral  as  they  float  by,  in  glittering  bubbles,  to  the 
dull  waters  of  oblivion,  may  yet  work  irreparable  and  enduring  mischief  ere 
their  brief  career  ends ;  and  the  results  may  continue,  vast  and  permanent, 
when  the  fleeting  causes  which  operated  have  long  gone  by.  Who  now  reads 
Eikon  Basilike,  the  forgery  of  Bishop  Gauden,  ascribed  to  the  beheaded 
Charles  I.  ?  Yet  that  counterfeited  manual  of  devotion  is  thought  by  some 
to  have  done  much  in  bringing  back  the  house  of  Stuart  to  the  English 
throne.1  "Who  in  this  age  knows  the  words  of  Lillebullero?2  yet  the  author 
of  that  street  ballad,  now  forgotten,  boasted  of  having  rhymed,  by  his  song, 
the  Stuarts  out  of  their  kingdom.  Thus  a  forged  prayer  book  aided  to 
restore  a  dynasty,  as  the  ragged  rhymes  of  a  street  song  helped  to  overturn 
it.  We  err  grievously,  therefore,  if  we  suppose  that  the  frivolous  is  neces- 
sarily uninfluential,  and  that  when  the  word  passes  its  effects  also  pass  with  it. 
According  to  Eastern  belief,  the  plague  that  wastes  a  city  may  be  communi- 
cated by  the  gift  of  a  glove  or  a  riband.  The  spark  struck  from  the  iron 
heel  of  the  laborer  may  have  disappeared  ere  the  eye  could  mark  its  tran- 
sient lustre,  yet  ere  it  expired  have  fired  the  train  which  explodes  a  maga- 
zine, lays  a  town  in  ruins,  and  spreads  around  a  wide  circuit,  alarm  and 
lamentation,  bereavement  and  death.  Trifles  may  have  no  trivial  influ- 
ence. What  is  called  the  lighter  literature  of  the  age  may  be  even  thus 
evanescent  yet  not  inefficacious.  By  its  wide  and  rapid  circulation  it  may 
act  more  powerfully  on  society  than  do  graver  and  abler  treatises,  and  its 
authors,  if  unprincipled,  may  thus  deserve  but  too  well  the  title  which  the 
indignant  Nicole  gave  to  the  comparatively  decorous  dramatists  and  ro- 
mance writers  of  France,  in  his  own  time  ;  a  title  which  his  pupil  Racine 
at  first  so  warmly  resented,  that  of  " public  poisoners ." 

Of  literature  therefore,  thus  understood,  thus  wide  in  its  range  and  various 
in  its  products,  thus  influential  even  where  the  most  careless,  and  thus 
clothed  with  most  solemn  responsibilities  because  of  its  influence,  it  is 
our  purpose  now  to  speak. 

You  perceive,  gentlemen,  that  amongst  ourselves,  as  a  people,  literature 
is  subject  to  certain  peculiar  influences,  perhaps  nowhere  else  found  in  the 
same  combination,  or  operating  to  the  same  extent  as  in  our  own  land.  We 
are  a  young  nation,  inhabiting,  and  called  to  subdue  a  wide  territory.  Youth 
is  the  season  of  hope,  enterprise,  and  energy — and  it  is  so  to  a  nation  as 
well  as  an  individual.  Our  literature  is  likely,  therefore,  to  be  ardent, 
original,  and  at  times  perhaps  boastful.  They  are  the  excellencies  and  the 
foibles  of  youth.  As  a  people  we  enjoy,  again,  that  freedom  which  has 
ever  been  the  indulgent  nurse  of  talent,  in  all  times  and  in  all  lands.  The 
people  are  here  the  kings.     And  whilst  some  of  our  sovereigns  are  toiling  in 

1  "  Many  have  not  scrupled  to  ascribe  to  that  book  the  subsequent  restoration  of  the  royal  fa- 
mily. Milton  compares  its  effects  to  those  which  were  wrought  on  the  tumultuous  Romans  by 
Anthony's  reading  to  them  the  will  of  Ca?sar.  The  Eikon  passed  through  fifty  editions  in  a  twelve- 
month."— Hume. 

2  "  It  may  not  be  unworthy  of  notice,  that  a  merry  ballad,  called  Lillibullero,  being  at  that  time 
published,  in  derision  of  the  papists  and  the  Irish,  it  was  greedily  received  by  the  people,  and  was 
sung  by  all  ranks  of  men,  even  by  the  King's  army,  who  were  strongly  seized  with  the  national 
spirit.  This  incident  both  discovered,  and  served  to  increase,  the  general  discontent  of  the  king- 
dom."— Hume. 


9 

the  field,  others  are  speaking  through  the  press.  Our  authors  are  all  royal 
by  political  right  if  not  by  the  birthright  of  genius.  Providence  has  blest 
us  also  with  the  wide  diffusion  of  education,  and  the  school  travels,  in  many 
regions  of  our  land,  as  it  were,  to  every  man's  door.  It  is  not  here,  if  it 
may  elsewhere  be  the  case,  that  the  neglected  children  of  genius  can  com- 
plain that  chill  penury  "  repressed  their  noble  rage."  In  addition  to  the 
advantages  of  the  common  school,  our  writers,  publishers,  and  instructors, 
are  sedulously  preparing  literature  for  the  use  of  the  masses.  The  popular 
lecturer  is  discussing  themes  of  grave  interest ;  while  the  cheap  periodical 
press  is  snowing  over  the  whole  face  of  our  land  its  thick  and  incessant 
storm  of  knowledge.  This  knowledge,  it  is  true,  is  not  all  of  the  most  val- 
uable kind.  The  wonders  of  steam  are  dragging  the  remoter  portions  of  our 
union,  daily  into  closer  contact,  whilst  a  free  emigration  is  bringing  us  the 
denizens  of  other  lands  and  the  men  of  other  tongues,  until  the  whole  world 
appears  about  to  be  made  neighbors  and  kinsmen  to  America ;  and  the  nation 
seems  daily  melting  into  a  new  and  strange  amalgam,  in  consequence  of  the 
addition  of  foreign  materials  from  without,  to  the  heterogeneous  mass  already 
found  fusing  within  our  own  country. 

All  these  causes  are  operating  and  must  operate  long  and  steadily  upon 
the  character  of  American  literature.  It  becomes  an  important  inquiry 
then,  what  moral  shape  this  literature  is  assuming  under  these  plastic  influ- 
ences. You  ask,  as  change  follows  change,  and  as  one  omen  of  moral  pro- 
gress, or  social  revolution  follows  close  upon  another:  "Watchman,  what 
of  the  night  ?"  And  gazing  into  the  deep  darkness  of  the  future,  you  would 
fain  read  what  are  the  coming  fortunes  of  our  people  and  their  literature. 
Allow  me  then  to  dwell  upon  some  of  the  evils  that  endanger  our  rising  lit- 
erature, and  threaten  to  suffuse  the  bloom  of  its  youth  with  their  fatal  virus. 
I  would  next  bring  before  3'ou  the  remedy  which  as  scholars,  patriots,  and 
Christians,  we  are  bound  to  apply  to  these  evils,  and  to  which  we  must 
look  as  our  preservative  against  the  approaching  danger. 

The  evils  to  be  found  besetting  and  perilling  American  literature  and  the 
remedy  of  those  evils,  will  afford  our  present  theme.  I  may  seem  to  dwell 
for  a  time,  at  least,  upon  the  darker  shades  of  a  picture,  that  may,  I  fear, 
appear  to  some  of  my  respected  hearers,  overcharged  in  its  gloom.  I  must 
also  from  the  nature  of  the  subject  enter  into  some  details,  that  will,  I  fear, 
severely  tax  the  patience  of  all  who  are  listening.  I  can  only  cast  myself 
upon  your  indulgence  ;  find  an  apology  as  to  the  length  of  some  state- 
ments, and  the  denser  shade  cast  by  others,  in  the  wide  and  varied  nature  of 
the  subject,  and  its  mingled  difficulty,  delicacy,  and  importance ;  asking 
the  aid  of  Him  whose  blessing  can  never  fail  those  that  trust  in  Him,  the 
author  of  all  knowledge,  and  the  final  arbiter  who  will  bring  into  judgment 
all  our  employments,  whether  literary  or  practical,  social  or  solitary. 

We  would  then  dwell  for  a  time,  on  some  of  the  dangers  that  threaten 
the  rising  literature  of  our  land.  If  the  foreground  of  the  landscape  be 
dark,  we  trust  to  show  in  the  distance  the  sure  and  sufficient  remedy  of 
these  dangers ;  and  though  night  be  spread  on  the  summits  of  the  nearer 
and  lov-er  mounmins,  we  see  glir.tp.ring  on  the  crest  of  the  remote*  and  loftier 


10  •* 

heights  beyond,  the  Star  of  Hope,  that  portends  the  coming  day,  and  undef 
•the  edge  of  the  darkest  cloud  we  seem  to  discern  already  the  gleams  of  the 
approaching  sun.  Our  country  may  suffer  and  struggle,  but  we  trust  it  is 
not  the  purpose  of  Him  who  has  so  signally  blest  and  so  long  defended  us, 
that  she  should  suffer  long,  or  sink  far,  much  less  sink  finally  and  for  ever. 

First  then  among  the  evil  tendencies  that  beset  our  youthful  literature, 
and  are  likely  to  thwart  and  mar  its  progress  we  would  name,  the  mechanical 
and  utilitarian  spirit  of  the  times.  "We  are  as  a  nation  eminently  practical 
in  our  character.  It  is  well  that  we  should  be  so.  But  this  trait  in  our 
national  feelings  and  manners  has  its  excesses  and  its  consequent  perils. 
Placed  in  a  country  where  labor  and  integrity  soon  acquire  wealth,  the 
love  of  wealth  has  become  a  passion  with  multitudes.  The  lust  of  gain 
seems  at  times  a  national  sin  easily  besetting  all  classes  of  society  amongst 
us.  Fierce  speculations  at  certain  intervals  of  years  engross  the  hearts  of 
the  community,  and  a  contagious  frenzy  sends  men  from  all  walks  of  life 
and  all  occupations  into  the  field  of  traffic.  Fortunes  are  rapidly  made  and 
as  rapidly  lost.  The  nation  seems  to  be  lifted  up  as  on  a  rushing  tide  of 
hope  and  prosperity.  It  subsides  as  rapidly  as  it  had  risen ;  and  on  every 
side  are  seen  strewn  the  wrecks  of  fortune,  credit,  character,  and  principle. 
All  this  affects  our  literature.  We  are,  in  the  influential  classes,  a  matter-of- 
fact,  and  money-getting  race.  This  tends,  in  the  minds  of  many  to  create 
a  distaste  for  all  truth  that  is  not  at  once  convertible  into  wealth,  and  its 
value  to  be  calculated  in  current  coin.  In  the  clank  and  din  of  our  never- 
tiring  machinery,  the  voice  of  wisdom  is  often  drowned,  and  the  most  mo- 
mentous and  stirring  truths  are  little  esteemed  because  they  cannot  be  rated 
in  the  Price  Current  or  sold  on  the  Exchange.  We  are  impatient  to  see  the 
material  results  of  every  truth,  and  to  have  its  profits  told  upon  our  fingers, 
or  pressed  into  our  palms.  So,  on  the  other  hand,  if  any  principle,  plan,  or 
expedient,  be  it  true  or  be  it  false,  will  effect  our  purpose,  produce  a  needful 
impression,  and  secure  an  end  that  we  deem  desirable,  we  are  prone  to  think 
it  allowable  because  it  is  effective.  We  idolize  effect.  And  a  philosophy  of 
expediency  thus  springs  up,  which  sacrifices  ever}'  thing  to  immediate  ef- 
fects and  to  mere  material  results — a  philosophy  which,  in  practice,  if  not  in 
theory,  is  driving  rapidly  against  some  of  the  very  bulwarks  of  moral  princi- 
ple, that  our  fathers  believed,  and  believed  justly,  to  be  grounded  in  the 
law,  and  built  into  the  very  throne  of  God. 

Now  we  need  not  say  that  where  this  utilitarian  and  mechanical  spirit 
acquires  the  ascendancy  in  our  literature,  it  must  operate  dangerously  on 
the  state  and  the  church.  The  prosperity  that  is  built  on  gain,  and  the 
morality  that  is  built  on  expediency,  will  save  no  nation.  The  declining 
glories  of  Tyre  and  Holland,  each  in  her  day  mistress  of  the  seas,  and 
guardian  of  its  treasures,  ma}r  read  us  an  admonitory  lesson  as  to  the  fatal 
blight  that  such  a  spirit  breathes  over  the  freedom,  the  arts  and  the  learning 
of  a  land. 

We  are  by  the  favoring  Providence  of  God,  placed  under  political  insti- 
tutions which  more  readily  yield  to  and  reflect  the  popular  will,  than  the 
government  and  laws  of  other  lands.    The  literature  of  our  nation,  more 


11 


Teadily  than  that  of  earlier  times,  or  of  older  countries,  moulds  the  political 
action  of  the  nation.  Let  but  the  spirit  of  expediency  and  of  gain  sway  our 
political  literature  in  the  thousand  journals  of  our  country,  and  in  the  my- 
riads of  voters  whom  these  journals  educate  and  govern.  Let  the  same 
spirit  possess  the  great  parties  ever  to  be  found  in  a  free  nation,  and  the 
aspiring  leaders  who  are  the  champions  and  oracles  of  those  parties,  and 
what  would  soon  be  the  result  ?  A  peddling  policy,  that,  disregarding  the 
national  interest  and  honor,  would  truckle  to  power  and  favor,  carry  its 
principles  to  market,  and  convert  statesmanship  into  a  trade.  The  country 
would  be  visited  with  an  impudent,  voluble  and  mercenary  patriotism,  that 
shrinking  at  no  artifice,  and  blushing  at  no  meanness,  would  systematize 
the  various  arts  of  popularity,  into  a  new  science  of  selfishness.  The 
legislation  of  the  land  and  its  intercourse  with  foreign  nations  would  be 
engrossed  by  trading  politicians;  huckstering  their  talents  and  influence 
to  the  party  or  the  measure  or  the  man,  that  should  bid  in  the  shape  of 
emolument  or  office,  the  highest  price  for  the  commodities  which  they  vend. 
The  expert  statesman  would  then  be  he  who  consulted  most  assiduously 
the  weathervane  of  popular  favor,  that  he  might  ascertain  to  what  point 
his  conscience  should  be  set.  And  should  such  time  ever  come  over  our 
beloved  land,  could  our  liberties  endure  when  guarded  only  by  hands  so 
faithless,  or  our  laws  be  either  wise  or  just,  when  such  men  made  and 
such  men  administered  them  ? 

Let  the  same  love  of  selfish  gain  pervade  the  pulpits  of  our  land  :  let 
the  messengers  of  the  gospel  learn  to  prophesy  smooth  things,  and  instead 
of  "the  word  in  season,"  let  them  substitute  the  word  in  fashion — let  them 
retail  doctrines  that  admit  no  personal  application,  truths  that  wound  not 
the  conscience  and  pierce  not  the  heart,  and  morals  enforced  by  no  motives  of 
love  to  God,  but.  by  mere  considerations  of  gain  or  honor — let  them  compile 
unoffending  truisms  and  dexterous  sophisms,  and  put  these  in  place  of  un- 
palatable truths — let  them  listen  to  the  echoes  of  popular  opinion  ever- 
more, that  they  may  m  them  learn  their  lessons  of  duty;  and  where 
soon  is  the  gospel  so  administered,  and  where  is  the  church  if  left  but  to 
such  instruction  ?  The  far-sighted  law  of  right  as  God  ordained  and  admin- 
isters it  would  be  overthrown,  that  in  its  stead  might  be  set  up  the  law  of 
interest,  as  short-sighted  man  expounds  it ;  and  a  creed  by  which  the  world 
is  to  be  humored,  flattered  and  adored,  would  be  audaciously  preached  at 
the  foot  of  a  cross  which  ransomed  that  world  only  by  renouncing  and  only 
by  defying  it.     No — gain  is  not  godliness. 

But  man  was  made  for  other  purposes  than  to  coin  or  exchange  dol- 
lars. The  fable  of  Midas  pestered  with  his  riches,  and  unable  to  eat  be- 
cause his  food  turned  to  gold,  is  full  of  beneficial  instruction  in  such  times 
as  ours.  Man  has  wants  which  money  cannot  supply,  and  sorrows  which 
lucre  cannot  heal ;  although  cupidity  may  teach  him  often  to  make  expe- 
diency or  immediate  utility  the  standard  of  his  code  of  morals.  Conscience 
too,  will  utter  at  times  her  protest,  slip  aside  the  gag,  and  reclaim  loudly 
against  practices  she  cannot  approve,  however  they  may  for  the  time 
profit.     A  literature  merely  venal  will  not  then  meet  all  the  necessities  of 


12 

man's  nature.  And  not  from  conscience  only  is  the  reign  of  covetousnesg 
threatened  and  made  insecure.  Mere  feeling  and  passion  lead  men  often 
to  look  to  other  than  their  pecuniary  interests,  and  in  quest  of  yet  dearer 
objects  they  trample  on  gain,  and  sacrifice  the  mere  conveniences  to  secure 
the  higher  enjoyments  of  life.  But  here,  in  this  last  named  fact,  is  found 
the  source  of  yet  another  danger  to  our  literature.  Passion  is  not  a  safer 
moral  guide  to  a  people  than  interest. 

2.  Let  us  dwell  on  this  new  inimical  influence  by  which  our  literature 
may  surfer.  Our  age  is  eminently,  in  some  of  its  leading  minds,  an  age  of 
passion.  It  is  seen  in  the  character  of  much  of  the  most  popular  literature 
and  especially  the  poetry7  of  our  day.  Much  of  this  has  been  the  poetry 
of  intense  passion,  it  mattered  little  how  unprincipled  that  passion  might 
be.  An  English  scholar  lately  gone  from  this  world,  it  is  to  Southey 
that  we  refer,  branded  this  school  of  modern  literature,  in  the  person  of 
its  great  and  titled  leader  as  the  Satanic  school.3  It  has  talent  and  ge- 
nius, high  powers  of  imagination  and  language,  and  boiling  energy  ;  but  it 
is;  much  of  it,  the  energy  of  a  fallen  and  revolted  angel,  with  no  regard  for 
the  right,  no  vision  into  eternity,  and  no  hold  on  Heaven.  We  would  not 
declaim  against  passion  when  employed  in  the  service  of  literature.     In- 


3  Another  English  scholar  whose  writings  may  be  quoted,  as  affording  evidence  of  a  re-action 
that  has  followed  the  influence  of  Byron,  holds  this  language.  Speaking  of  the  heroes  of  Byron, 
he  remarks  :  "  They  exhibit  rather  passions  personified  than  persons  impassioned.  But  there  is  a 
yet  worse  defect,  Lord  Byron's  conception  of  a  hero  is  an  evidence,  not  only  of  scanty  materials 
of  knowledge  from  which  to  construct  the  ideal  of  a  human  being,  but  also  of  a  want  of  perception 
of  what  is  great  or  noble  in  our  nature.  His  heroe?  are  creatures  abandoned  to  their  passions,  and 
essentially,  therefore,  weak  of  mind.  They  must  be  perceived  to  be  beings  in  whom  there  is  no 
strength,  except  that  of  their  intensely  selfish  passions, — in  whom  all  is  vanity ;  their  exertions 
being  for  vanity  under  the  name  of  love  or  revenge,  and  their  sufferings  for  vanity  under  the  name 
of  pride.  If  such  beings  as  these  are  to  be  regarded  as  heroical,  where  in  human  nature  are  we  to 
look  for  what  is  low  in  sentiment,  or  infirm  in  character?"  It  is  not  the  language  of  theologians 
we  are  now  quoting,  but  the  words  we  have  transcribed  are  those  of  "  a  prophet  of  their  own," — 
of  a  living  dramatic  poet,  Henry  Taylor,  the  author  of  "  Philip  Van  Artevelde."  Elsewhere  be 
uses  the  aid  of  verse,  to  pronounce  a  similar  judgment. 

"  Then  learned  I  to  despise  that  far-famed  school 

Who  place  in  wickedness  their  pride,  and  deem 
Power  chiefly  to  be  shown  where  passion*  rule, 

And  not  where  they  are  ruled :  in  whose  new  scheme 

Of  heroism,  self-government  should  seem 
A  thing  left  out,  or  something  to  contemn, 

Whose  notions,  incoherent  as  a  dream, 
Make  strength  go  with  the  torrent,  and  not  stem, 
For  '  wicked  and  thence  weak'  is  not  a  creed  for  them. 

I  left  these  passionate  weaklings  :  I  perceived 

What  took  away  all  nobleness  from  pride, 
All  dignity  from  sorrow;  what  bereaved 

Even  genius  of  respect;  they  seemed  allied 

To  mendicants  that  by  the  highway  side 
Expose  their  self-inflicted  wouuds,  to  gain 

The  alms  of  sympathy— far  best  denied. 
I  heard  the  sorrowful  sensualist  complain, 
If  with  compassion,  not  without  disdain." 


13 

formed  by  strong  feeling,  truth  becomes  both  more  awful  and  more  lovely ; 
and  some  of  the  ages  which  unfettered  the  passions  of  a  nation  have  given 
birth  to  master-pieces  of  genius.  But  Passion  divorced  from  Virtue  is 
ultimately  among  the  fellest  enemies  to  literary  excellence.  When  yoked 
to  the  car  of  duty,  and  reined  in  by  principle,  passion  is  in  its  appropriate 
place,  and  may  accomplish  a  mighty  service.  But  when,  in  domestic  life, 
or  political,  or  in  the  walks  of  liteiature,  passion  throws  off  these  restraints 
and  exults  in  its  own  uncontrolled  power,  it  is  as  useless  for  purposes  of 
good,  and  as  formidable  from  its  powers  of  evil,  as  a  car  whose  fiery  coursers 
have  shaken  off  bit  and  rein  and  trampled  under  foot  their  charioteer.  The 
Maker  of  man  made  conscience  to  rule  his  other  faculties,  and  when  it  is 
dethroned,  the  result  is  ruin.  Far  as  the  literature  to  which  we  have 
alluded  spreads,  it  cherishes  an  insane  admiration  for  mere  talent  or  mental 
power.  It  substitutes  as  a  guide  in  morals,  sentiment  for  conscience ; 
and  makes  blind  feeling  the  irresistible  fate,  whose  will  none  may  dis- 
pute, and  whose  doings  are  beyond  the  jurisdiction  of  casuists  or  law- 
givers. It  has  much  of  occasional  tenderness  and  can  melt  at  times  into 
floods  of  sympathy :  but  this  softness  is  found  strangely  blended  with 
a  savage  violence.  Such  things  often  co-exist.  As  in  the  case  of  the 
French  hangman,  who  in  the  times  of  their  great  revolution  was  found, 
fresh  from  his  gory  work  at  the  guillotine,  sobbing  over  the  Sorrows  of 
Werther,  it  contrives  to  ally  the  sanguinary  to  the  sentimental.  It  seems 
at  first  sight,  much  such  an  ill-assorted  match  as  if  the  family  of  Mr. 
Wet-eyes  in  one  of  Bunyan's  matchless  allegories,  were  wedded  to  that 
of  Giant  Blocdy-man  in  the  other.  But  it  is  easily  explained.  It  has 
been  found  so  in  all  times  when  passion  has  been  made  to  take  the  place 
of  reason  as  the  guide  of  a  people,  and  conscience  has  been  thrust  from  the 
throne  to  be  succeeded  by  sentiment.  The  luxurious  and  the  cruel, 
the  fierce  and  the  voluptuous,  the  licentious  and  the  relentless  read- 
ily coalesce  ;  and  we  soon  are  made  to  perceive  the  fitness  of  the  classic 
fable  by  which,  in  the  old  Greek  mythology,  Venus  was  seen  knitting  her 
hands  with  Mars,  the  goddess  of  sensuality,  allying  herself  with  the  god  of 
slaughter.  We  say,  much  of  the  literature  of  the  present  and  the  last  gen- 
eration is  thus  the  caterer  of  passion,  lawless,  fierce,  and  vindictive  passion. 
And  if  a  retired  student  may  "  through  the  loopholes  of  retreat"  read 
aright  the  world  of  fashion,  passion  seems  at  times  acquiring  an  unwonted 
ascendancy  in  the  popular  amusements  of  the  age.  The  lewd  pantomime 
and  dance,  from  which  the  less  refined  fashion  of  other  times  would  have 
turned  her  blushing  and  indignant  face,  the  gorgeous  spectacle  and  the 
shows  of  wild  beasts,  and  even  the  sanguinary,  pugilistic  combat,  that 
sometimes  recals  the  gladiatorial  shows  of  old  Rome,  have  become  in  our 
day,  the  favorite  recreations  of  some  classes  among  the  lovers  of  pleasure. 
These  are,  it  'should  be  remembered,  nearly  the  same  with  the  favorite  en- 
tertainments of  the  later  Greek  empire,  when  plethoric  by  its  wealth,  and 
enervated  by  its  luxury,  that  power  was  about  to  be  trodden  down  by  the 
barbarian  invasions  of  the  north. 
It  is  possible  that  the  same  dangerous  ascendancy  of  passion  may  be  fos- 


14 

tered,  where  we  should  have  been  slow  to  suspect  it,  by  the  ultraism  of 
some  good  men  among  the  social  reformers  of  our  time.  Wilberforce  was, 
in  the  judgment  of  Mackintosh,  the  very  model  of  a  reformer,  because  he 
united  an  earnestness  that  never  flagged  with  a  sweetness  that  never  failed. 
There  are  good  men  that  have  nothing  of  this  last  trait.  Amid  the  best  in- 
tentions there  is  occasionally,  in  the  benevolent  projects  even,  of  this  day,  a 
species  of  Jack  Cadeism,  if  we  may  be  allowed  the  expression,  enlisted  in 
the  service  of  reform.  It  seems  the  very  opposite  of  the  character  of  Wil- 
berforce, nourishes  an  acridity  and  violence  of  temper,  that  appears  to  delight 
in  repelling,  and  seeks  to  enkindle  feeling  by  wild  exaggeration  and  personal 
denunciation ;  raves  in  behalf  of  good  with  the  very  spirit  of  evil,  and 
where  it  cannot  convince  assent,  would  extort  submission.  Even  truth 
itself  when  administered  at  a  scalding  heat,  cannot  benefit  the  recipient ; 
and  the  process  is  not  safe  for  the  hands  of  the  administrator  himself. 

Far  be  it  from  us  to  decry  earnestness  when  shown  in  the  cause  of  truth 
and  justice,  or  to  forget  how  the  passion  awakened  in  some  revolutionary 
crisis  of  a  people's  history,  has  often  infused  into  the  productions  of  genius 
an  unwonted  energy  and  clothed  them  as  with  an  immortal  vigor.  But  it 
is  passion  yoked  to  the  chariot  of  reason,  and  curbed  by  the  strong  hand  of 
principle  ;  laboring  in  the  traces,  but  not  grasping  the  reins.  But  set  aside 
argument  and  truth  and  give  to  passion  its  unchecked  course,  and  the  effect 
is  fatal.  It  may  at  first  seem  to  clothe  a  literature  with  new  energy,  but  it 
is  the  mere  energy  of  intoxication  soon  spent,  and  for  which  there  speedily 
comes  a  sure  and  biiter  reckoning.  The  bonds  of  principle  are  loosened  ; 
the  tastes  and  habits  of  society  corrupted,  and  the  effects  are  soon  seen  ex- 
tending themselves  to  the  very  form  and  style  of  a  literature  as  well  as  to  the 
morality  of  its  productions.  The  intense  is  substituted  for  the  natural  and 
true.  What  is  effective  is  sought  for  rather  than  what  is  exact.  Our  lite- 
rature therefore  has  little,  in  such  portions  of  it,  of  the  high  finish  and  se- 
rene repose  of  the  master-pieces  of  classic  antiquity,  where  passion  in  its 
highest  flights  is  seen  wearing  gracefully  all  the  restraining  rules  of  art ; 
and  power  toils  ever  as  under  the  severe  eye  of  order. 

3.  A  kindred  evil,  the  natural  result  and  accompaniment  of  that  to 
which  we  have  last  adverted,  and  like  it  fatal  to  the  best  interests  of 
literature,  is  the  laivlcssness,  unhappily  but  too  rife  through  large  districts 
of  our  territory,  and  in  various  classes  of  its  inhabitants.  Authority  in  the 
parent,  the  magistrate  or  the  pastor,  seems  daily  to  be  held  by  a  less  firm 
tenure.  Obedience  seems  to  be  regarded  rather  as  a  boon,  and  control  re- 
sented as  usurpation.  The  restraints  of  honesty  in  the  political  and  com- 
mercial intercourse  of  society  seem  more  feebly  felt.  In  those  entrusted 
by  the  state  and  by  public  corporations  with  the  control  of  funds,  the  charges 
of  embezzlement  and  defalcation  have  within  the  last  few  years  multiplied 
rapidly  in  number,  and  swelled  fearfully  in  amount.  Until,  catching  the 
contagion  of  the  times,  sovereign  states  are  found  questioning  the  obliga- 
tions of  their  own  contracts,  and  repudiating  their  plighted  word  and  bond. 
In  the  matter  of  good  faith  between  man  and  man,  as  to  pecuniary  engage- 
ments, the  wheels  of  the  social  machine  groan  ominously,  as  if  they  were,  by 


15 

Borne  internal  dislocation  and  collision,  ready  to  tear  asunder  the  fabric  of 
society.  Private  revenge  and  the  sudden  ebullitions  of  popular  violence 
disregarding  all  delays  and  setting  aside  all  forms,  seem  in  some  districts 
ready  to  supplant  the  quiet  administration  of  the  laws,  and  dispensing  alike 
with  judges  and  prisons.  The  laws  of  God  too  are  often  as  lightly  regarded 
as  the  laws  of  human  society.  In  the  growing  facility  of  divorce,  the  stat- 
ute of  Heaven  intended  to  guard  the  purity  of  home,  and  lying  at  the 
foundation  of  all  society,  is  to  some  extent  infringed  upon  :  while  our  rail- 
roads and  canals  have  run  their  lines  fearlessly  athwart  the  Sabbath;  and 
it  seems  a  question  whether  the  flaming  Sinai  should  be  allowed  to  stand 
any  longer  in  the  pathway  of  modern  improvement. 

And  amid  such  scenes  of  disorder  and  commotion,  it  is, — scenes  illustrat- 
ing so  fearfully  the  depravity,  inveterate  and  entire,  of  the  human  heart, — 
it  is,  we  say,  amid  such  scenes  that  men  are  rising  up  to  remodel  all  society* 
At  the  attempt  we  ought  not  perhaps  to  be  surprised,  so  much  as  at  the 
principles  on  which  it  proceeds.  On  these  we  look  with  irrepressible  asto- 
nishment. They  assume  the  natural  innocence  of  man,  and  trace  all  his 
miseries  and  all  his  crimes  to  bad  government,  to  false  views  of  society,  and 
to  ignorance  respecting  the  true  relations  of  man  to  man, — relations  which 
after  the  lapse  of  so  many  centuries  they  have  been  the  first  to  reveal. 
They  would  not  merely  overlook,  but  deny  that  melancholy  truth,  the  Fall 
of  Man  from  his  original  state,  and  his  consequent  native  depravity; — a 
truth  never  to  be  forgotten  by  all  that  would  exercise  a  true  benevolence  to 
their  brother  man,  and  by  all  that  would  build  up  a  stable  government.  In 
denying  this  truth,  they  contradict  all  the  experience,  all  the  history,  and  shall 
we  not  add,  all  the  consciousness  of  our  race.  A  truth  which  even  blinded 
and  haughty  heathenism  mournfully  acknowledged, — a  truth  which  Reve- 
lation asserts  so  emphatically  and  so  often,  cannot  with  impunity  be  forgotten 
by  any  that  would  attempt  the  reform  of  man's  condition.  Vague  and  wild 
in  principle,  and  comparatively  barren  of  results,  must  all  reforms  be  that 
would  make  all  their  improvements  from  without,  and  feel  that  none  is 
needed  within.  We  would  honor  even  the  misguided  zeal  of  our  brethren 
of  the  race  who  seek  in  any  form  to  lessen  the  amount  of  human  misery 
and  wrong ;  but  the  claims  of  our  Common  Father,  and  the  wrongs  He  has 
met  at  our  hands,  are  to  be  acknowledged  by  all  who  would  pity,  with  an 
effectual  compassion,  human  sorrow,  and  remedy  with  an  enduring  relief, 
social  disorder  and  wretchedness.  To  forget  or  to  contradict  these  truths,  is 
to  reject  the  lessons  alike  of  history  and  scripture.  All  reform  so  based  is 
itself  but  a  new,  though  it  may  be  unconscious,  lawlessness. 

We  have  said  that  proposals  of  social  reform  are  not  causes  of  wonder. 
Already  human  life  is  less  secure  in  many  portions  of  our  republic,  than 
under  some  of  the  European  monarchies ;  and  frauds  and  embezzlements 
are  less  surely  and  less  severely  punished.  In  some  of  our  legislatures,  in  the 
very  halls,  and  under  the  awful  eye,  as  it  were,  of  the  embodied  Justice  of 
the  State,  brawls  and  murders  have  occurred,  in  which  our  legislators  were  the 
combatants  and  the  victims.     And  yet  in  such  a  state  of  things,  when  human 


16 

life  is  growing  daily  cheaper,  and  the  fact  of  assassination  seems  to  awaken 
scarce  a  tithe  of  the  sympathy,  horror,  and  inquiry,  which  it  provoked  irt 
our  fathers'  times, — it  is  in  such  a  state  of  things,  that  by  a  strange  paradox, 
a  singular  clemency  for  the  life  of  the  assassin  seems  springing  up.  In  a 
nation  lax  to  a  fault  in  the  vindication  of  human  life  when  illegally  taken 
away,  the  protest  is  made  most  passionately  against  its  being  taken  away 
legally;  and  the  abolition  of  Capital  Punishment  is  demanded  by  earnest 
and  able  agitators.  Would  that  the  picture  thus  dark  were  but  the  sketch 
of  Fancy;  unhappily  its  gloomy  hues  are  but  the  stern  coloring  of  Truth. 
Can  the  patriot,  as  he  watches  such  omens,  fail  to  see  the  coming  judgment? 
Can  he  shut  his  eyes  against  the  fact  so  broadly  printed  on  all  the  pages  of 
history,  that  anarchy  makes  despotism  necessary ;  that  men  who  are  left 
lawless  soon  fly  for  refuge  even  to  a  sceptre  of  iron,  and  a  law  of  blood ; 
that  a  Robespierre  has  ever  prepared  the  way  for  a  Buonaparte,  and  the 
arts  of  the  reckless  demagogue,  like  Catiline,  have  smoothed  the  path  for 
the  violence  of  the  able  usurper,  like  Caesar  ?  Of  all  this,  should  it  unhap- 
pily continue  or  increase,  the  effects  must  with  growing  rapidity  be  seen  in 
the  injury  done  to  our  literature.  There  is  a  close  and  strange  connexion 
between  moral  and  literary  integrity.  Not  only  does  social  confusion  dis- 
courage the  artist  and  the  scholar,  but  disjointed  and  anarchical  times  are 
often  marked  by  a  want  of  laborious  truth,  and  of  seriousness  and  earnest- 
ness on  the  part  of  the  popular  writers.  A  passion  for  frivolity,  a  temper 
that  snatches  at  temporary  triumphs  by  flattering  the  whim  of  the  hour,  and 
a  science  of  agreeable,  heartless  trifling,  spring  up  in  such  days  to  the  bane 
alike  of  all  eloquence,  and  of  all  truth. 

4.  Another  of  the  perils  which  seem  to  us  lying  in  the  way  of  our  rising 
literature,  is  a.  false  liberalism.  To  a  manly  and  Christian  toleration  we  can 
never  be  opposed.  Something  of  this  toleration  is  required  by  our  free  inter- 
course with  many  lands.  The  wonders  of  steam  are  melting  the  nations  most 
highly  civilized  into  comparative  uniformity  and  unity.  Our  colonists  are  the 
emigrants  of  many  shores.  In  this  audience  are  found  blended  the  blood  of 
the  Celt  and  the  Saxon,  the  Norman  and  the  Roman.  We  are  scions  alike 
from  the  stock  of  those  who  fought  beneath,  and  of  those  who  warred  sue- 
cessfully  against  the  eagles  of  the  old  Latin  empire.  Our  varied  origin 
seems  giving  to  America,  as  its  varied  learning  has  given  to  Germany,  a 
"many-sided  mind;"  a  sympathy  at  many  points  with  mankind,  and  with 
widely  diversified  forms  of  society.  More  easily  than  the  English,  the 
ancestors  whom  many  of  us  claim,  we  adopt  the  peculiarities  of  other  na- 
tions. And  all  this  is  well.  But  when  we  suffer  these  influences  to  foster 
in  us  the  notion  that  all  the  moral  peculiarities,  and  all  the  forms  of  faith, 
marking  the  various  tribes  from  which  our  country  is  supplied,  and  with 
which  our  commerce  connects  us,  are  alike  valuable  ; — when,  instead  of  an 
enlightened  love  of  truth  wherever  found,  we  learn  indifference  to  all  truth, 
and  call  this  new  feeling  by  the  name  of  superiority  to  prejudice  ; — when 
we  leara  to  think  of  morals  as  if  they  were  little  more  than  a  conventional 
matter,  the  effect  of  habit  or  tradition,  or  the  results  of  climate  or  of  the 


17 

physical  constitution  of  a  people,  we  are  learning  lessons  alike  irrational, 
and  perilous,  and  untrue.4 

The  spirit  of  Pope's  Universal  Prayer  seems  to  many,  in  consequence  of 
these  and  other  influences,  the  essence  of  an  enlightened  Christian  charity. 
They  cannot  endure  the  anathemas  of  Paul  against  those  who  deny  his 
Lord.  They  would  classify  the  Koran  and  the  Shaster  with  the  Scriptures. 
Some  have  recently  discovered  a  truth  of  which  those  writers  were  them- 
selves strangely  ignorant,  that  the  Deistical  and  Atheistical  scholars  of  France, 
the  Theomachists  who  prepared  the  way  for  its  Revolution,  the  men  who 
loaded  the  Crucified  Nazarene  and  his  religion  with  all  outrage,  were  in 
truth  Christians,  although  they  knew  it  not  themselves.  Just  as  much,  it 
seems  to  us,  as  Nero  was  an  unconscious  Howard;  just  as  much  as  Catiline 
was,  in  modest  ignorance  of  his  own  merits,  an  anticipated  Washington. 
It  is  worse  than  idle  thus  to  confound  all  moral  distinctions.  To  suit  these 
new  and  more  liberal  views  of  Christianity,  it  has  become  of  course  neces- 
sary to  revise  the  gospel,  and  to  supersede  at  least  the  ancient  forms  of  the 
Christian  religion.  Thus  in  a  land  the  literature  and  religion  of  which  are 
becoming  more  and  more  known  to  some  of  our  scholars,  Strauss  has  evis- 
cerated the  New  Testament  of  all  its  facts,  and  leaves  in  all  its  touching  and 
miraculous  narrations  but  the  fragments  of  a  popular  myth, — intended  to 
shadow  forth  certain  truths  common  in  the  history  of  human  nature  in  all 
ages.  The  nation  to  which  he  belongs,  and  which  claims  to  be  the  most 
profound  in  metaphysical  speculation  and  in  varied  learning,  of  all  the  na- 
tions of  our  time,  is  reviving  in  some  of  its  schools  an  undisguised  Pan- 

4  It  is  well  that  we  should  cherish  a  humble  sense  of  our  own  fallibility;  but,  whatever  may  be 
true  of  us,  God  and  Scripture  are  infallible.  The  Creator,  too,  so  constituted  his  universe,  that 
there  is  truth  in  it,  and  throughout  it ;  and  he  has  so  constituted  man  as  to  thirst,  with  an  inex- 
tinguishable longing,  after  truth.  An  utter  despair  of  obtaining  it,  aud  a  general  acknowledgment 
that  we  are  all  together  and  inevitably  in  the  wrong,  is  alike  a  state  of  misery  to  man,  and  a  dis- 
honor done  to  God.  It  may  give  birth  to  a  sort  of  toleration,  but  it  is  the  spurious  toleration  of 
Pyrrhonism,  a  liberality  that  patronizes  error,  but  thac  can  be  fierce  against  the  truth,  for  as  the 
wise  and  meek  Carey  complained,  skeptics  may  be  the  most  intolerant  of  mankind  against  the  truth. 
A  Christian  toleration  appreciates  the  innate  power  of  truth  to  diffuse  and  protect  itself;  and  pities 
error  while  resisting  it.  The  liberality  of  skepticism  denies  existence  to  truth,  and  canonizes  error 
as  a  sufficient  substitute,  and  sets  men  afloat  on  a  shoreless,  starless  ocean  of  doubt.  Or  as  a  young 
poet  of  EngHnd  has  not  infelicitously  described  it,  it  prescribes  to  mankind  the  task  of  conjugat- 
ing falsehood  through  all  its  moods,  tenses,  and  cases,  and  teaches  them  mutual  forbearance  as  the 
result  of  their  common  infatuation. 

1 "  Let  them  alone,"  men  cry, 
"  I  lie,  thou  liest,  they  lie  : 
What  then  ?    Thy  neighbor's  folly  hurts  not  thee  !" 
Error  is  Freedom  !  such  the  insensate  shout 
Of  crowds  that,  like  a  Paean,  hymn  a  Doubt : 
Indifference  thus  the  world  calls  Charity. 

"  Battles  at  last  shall  cease." 

At  last,  not  now  -.  we  are  not  yet  at  home. 
The  time  is  coming,  it  will  soon  be  come, 
When  those  who  dare  not  fight 
For  God,  or  for  the  right, 
Shall  fight  for  peace  !' 

From  "  The  Waldsnses,  and  Other  Toems^  by  Aubrey  de  Vcre.    Oxford,  1843.    P.  127. 

3 


18 

theism,  which  makes  the  universe  God ;  and  thus,  in  effect,  gives  to  Job  arret 
the  dunghill  on  which  he  sate,  the  ulcers  which  covered  him,  and  the  pot- 
sherds with  which  he  scraped  himself,  the  honor  of  being  all,  parts  and 
parcels  alike  of  the  same  all-pervading  Deity.  And  this  is  the  wisdom, 
vaunted  and  profound,  of  our  times ;  a  return,  in  fact,  to  those  discoveries 
described  of  old  in  a  venerable  volume  which  we  all  wot  of,  in  the  brief  and 
pithy  sentence, — "  The  world  by  wisdom  knew  not  God."  The  result  of 
its  arrogant  self-confidence  was  blindness  to  the  great  fact  blazing  on  the 
whole  face  of  creation,  and  deafness  to  the  dread  voice  that  speaks  out  of  all 
history,  the  truth  that  there  is  a  God.  And  hence,  not  so  much  from  any  sin- 
gular cogency  in  his  reasoning  as  from  the  palatableness  of  the  results  which 
that  reasoning  reaches,  Spinoza,  the  Pantheist  Jew,  is,  after  a  long  lapse 
of  years  of  confutation  and  obscurity,  rising  again  in  the  view  of  some  scho- 
lars in  Germany,  Britain,  and  America,  to  the  rank  of  a  guide  in  morals 
and  a  master  of  religious  truth.5     When  such  a  form  of  philosophy  becomes 


5  Of  the  system  of  Spinoza  it  had  been  said  by  the  acute  Bayle,  certainly  no  bigoted  adheren* 
to  Christianity,  and  no  prejudiced  enemy  of  skepticism,  that  "it  was  the  most  monstrous  scheme 
imaginable  ;"  and  again,  that  "it  has  been  fully  overthrown  even  by  the  weakest  of  its  adversa- 
ries." In  a  similnr  spirit,  Maclaurin,  the  celebrated  British  mathematician,  had  remarked,  "  It  doe3 
Dot,  indeed,  appear  possible  to  invent  another  system  equally  absurd." — (Dvgald  Stewart's  Pro- 
gress of  Metaphysical  Philosophy,  p.  116.  Am.  Edition.)— Stewart  quotes  from  Colerus,  the  author 
of  a  Life  of  Spinoza,  the  singular  anecdote,  that  "  one  of  the  amusements  with  which  he  was 
accustomed  to  unbend  his  mind,  was  that  of  entangling  flies  in  a  spider's  web,  or  of  setting  spiders 
to  fighting  with  each  other  :  on  which  occasions  (it  is  added,)  he  would  observe  their  combats  with 
so  much  interest  that  it  was  not  unusual  for  him  to  be  seized  with  immoderate  fits  of  laughter." — 
(Ibidem,  p.  351.)  Stewart,  we  think,  lays  too  much  stress  on  this  incident,  when  he  finds  in  it  a 
proof  of  Spinoza's  insanity.  It.  was,  certainly,  not  the  most  amiable  trait  in  the  character  of  a 
philosopher  for  whom  his  disciples  have  claimed  a  remarkable  hlamelessness  and  even  piety.  We 
cannot  imagine  such  an  amusement  as  delighting  the  vacant  hours,  and  such  merriment  as  gl 
ing  the  heart,  of  a  Christian  philosopher  like  Boyle  or  Newton.  Trivial  as  it  was,  it  betrayed  the 
spirit,  and  furnished  no  unapt  emblem,  of  the  system  he  elaborated  in  his  philosophy,  where  an 
acute  mind  found  its  amusement  in  entangling  to  their  ruin  its  haples>  victims  in  a  web  of  sophistry, 
that  puzzled,  caught,  and  destroyed  them  :  and  grim  Blasphemy  lay  waiting  to  devour  those  who 
fluttered  in  the  snares  of  Falsehood. 

Yet  this  system,  the  product  of  such  a  mind,  has  been  recently,  with  loud  panegyrics  of  its  au- 
thor, commended  anew  to  the  regard  of  mankind  on  either  side  of  the  Atlantic.  Paulus,  the  cele- 
brated Neologian  divine  of  Germany,  had  issued,  years  ago,  an  edition  of  his  works.  Amongst 
ourselves  and  the  scholars  of  England,  such  views  have  obtained  currency  mostly,  it  is  probable, 
from  the  admiration  professed  for  Spinoza  by  such  men  as  Goethe,  and  others,  the  scholars  and 
philosophers  of  Germany,  for  whom  we  have  contracted  too  indiscriminating  a  reverence.  Goethe'3 
course  was  paradoxical.  Rejecting  revelation  as  impossible,  for  the  singular  reason  that  if  it  came 
from  God  it  must  be  unintelligible  to  men,  and  declaring  God  as  presented  in  the  teachings  of  Christ 
Jesus,  to  be  an  imperfect  and  inadequate  conception,  Goethe  held  that  the  Divinity  revealed  in  the 
Bible  involved  difficulties  which  must  drive  an  inquirer  to  despair,  unless  he  were  "  great  erough 
to  rise  to  the  stand-point  of  a  higher  view  ;"  in  other  words,  a  higher  point  of  observation  than 
that  occupied  by  Christ.  "  Such  a  stand-point  Goethe  early  found  in  Spinoza;  and  he  acknow- 
ledges with  joy  how  truly  the  views  of  that  great  thinker  answered  to  the  wants  of  his  youth.  In 
h\m  he  found  himself ,  and  could  therefore  fortify  himself  with  Spinoza  to  the  best  advantage.'' 
These  are  the  words  of  Eckerman,  (Eclcerman  Convers.  with  Goethe.  Boston:  p.  37,)  who 
played  with  Goethe  the  part  that  James  Boswell  acted  to  the  great  lexicographer  and  moralist  of 
England,  recording  as  a  humble  admirer,  the  conversations  of  his  oracle.  Of  the  moral  character 
of  some  of  the  productions  of  Goethe  we  need  not  pause  to  remark.  There  are  principles  devel- 
oped in  his  writings  that  needed  "fortifying."  We  would  but  notice  a  difficulty  which  the  lan- 
guage of  iiis  admirer  suggests.  Goethe  is  made  to  speak  of  Spinoza  as  the  thinker  "  in  whom  he 
found  himself.'1  To  us,  the  uninitiated,  it  seems  hard  to  reconcile  this  test  by  which  he  recognised 
and  adopted  his  master's  system,  with  his  passionate  words  elsewhere,  recorded  by  the  same  adrair- 


19 

prevalent,  all  forms  of  religion  are  alike  true,  or  in  other  words,  are  alike 
False  ;  and  room  is  to  be  made  for  a  new  religion  by  which  man  shall  wor- 
ship Nature  or  himself.  So  difficult  is  it  for  the  gospel  to  suit  men's  way- 
wardness. It  was  the  objection  of  the  old  Pagans  to  Christianity,  as  we 
learn  from  Origen,  that  it  was  too  universal  a  religion  :  that  every  country 
should  of  right  be  allowed  a  religion  of  its  own ;  and  Christianity  was  arro- 
gant in  asking  to  be  received  as  the  one  faith  of  all  countries.  But  now  the 
opposers  of  this  gospel  discover  that  it  has  the  defect  of  not  being  universal 
enough ;  and  they  wish  a  wider  faith,  that  will  embrace  the  race,  let  them 
think  as  they  please,  and  worship  as  they  may.  Thus  would  this  school 
reconcile  all  religions  by  evaporating  them. 

In  Germany,  the  country  that  has  most  cultivated  this  hideous  error, 
it  has  as  yet,  we  believe,  prevailed  chiefly  among  portions  of  the 
literary  classes,  and  not  reached  the  peasantry ;  and  the  nation  thus 
affected  are  less  prone  to  reduce  their  opinions  to  action,  and  are  both  more 
speculative  and  less  practical  than  ourselves.  But  let  such  a  doctrine  come 
amongst  us  and  grow  to  be  popular.  Let  it  pass  from  the  libraries  of  a  few 
dreaming  scholars  into  our  common  schools,  our  workshops,  our  farm-houses, 
and  our  homes.  Like  an  active  poison  released  from  its  confinement  in  the 
dim  laboratory  of  the  chemist,  where  it  was  comparatively  unknown  and 
innocuous,  let  it  be  sprinkled  into  every  pipkin  simmering  upon  the  cottage 


ing  Eckerman,  (p.  309.)  "  Man  is  a  darkened  being  ;  he  knows  not  whence  he  comes,  nor  whither 
he  goes  ;  he  knows  little  of  the  world,  and  less  of  himself.  I  know  not  myself,  and  may  God  pro- 
tect me  from  it."  How  the  rule  of  the  old  Greek  wisdom,  "  know  thyself,"  might  seem  folly  to  the 
modern  German  we  can  conceive  :  and  how  the  view  of  his  own  heart  might  shock  and  appal  one 
who  would  fain  idolize  his  own  wisdom  and  virtue,  we  can,  with  as  little  difficult) ■,  imagine.  But 
how  one  who  shrunk  from  knowing  himself,  could,  by  knowing  himself,  recognise  the  truth  of  a 
system  of  Pantheism,  is  to  us  inconceivable.  A  religion  that  begins  in  dogmatic  ignorance  as  to 
our  own  nature,  and  ends  in  dogmatic  omniscience  as  to  God's  nature,  does  not  commend  itself  to 
our  reason,  more  than  it  does  to  our  sympathies,  or  our  hopes. 

An  affecting  proof  may  be  gathered  from  the  same  volume,  (pp.  405,  407,)  how  easily  the  Panthe- 
ism of  the  schools  slides  into  the  Polytheism  of  the  multitude.  Goethe  had  received  a  cast  of  a 
piece  of  statuary.  A  model  from  Myron's  cow,  with  the  sucking  calf,  was  sent  him  by  a  young 
artist.  "  Here,"  said  he,  "  we  have  a  subject  of  the  highest  sort — the  nourishing  principle  which 
upholds  the  world,  and  pervades  all  nature,  is  brought  before  our  eyes  by  this  beautiful  symbol. 
This,  and  others  of  a  like  nature,  /  esteem  the  true  symbols  of  the  omnipresence  of  God.''  What 
the  omnipresence  of  the  Deity,  in  the  system  of  Pantheism  is,  we  need  not  linger  to  remark. 
Skeptics  have  affected  to  wonder  at  the  unaccountable  perverseness  of  the  children  of  Israel  forging 
and  adoring  their  golden  calf  at  the  foot  of  Sinai ;  but  here  we  have  the  practice  palliated  by  a 
master-spirit  of  skepticism,  amid  the  boasted  illumination  of  the  nineteenth  century.  A  cow  with 
her  calf  is,  according  to  Goethe,  "  the  true  symbol,"  of  the  all-pervading,  all-sustaining  Divinity 
who  comprises,  and  himself  is,  the  universe.  Did  Pantheism  but  rule  the  schools,  we  can  see  how 
easily  idolatry  in  its  most  brutish  forms  might  be  revived  among  the  populace  ;  and  the  ox-gods 
and  onion-gods  of  Egypt,  at  which  even  a  heathen  Juvenal  jeered,  might,  amid  all  our  vaunted 
advance  in  knowledge,  receive  again  the  worship  of  our  scholars.  Pantheism  is  the  philosophy  of 
Braminism  with  all  its  hundred  thousand  graven  images.  The  men  who  had  outgrown  the  Bible, 
and  found  themselves  wi*cr  than  the  Redeemer,  might,  under  the  auspices  of  Pantheism,  return 
lo  the  worship  of  Apis,  and  adore  the  gods  of  the  dairy  and  the  stall,  as  they  stood  chewing  their 
cud,  or  suckling  their  calves. 

Thus  does  the  philosophy  that  would  fain  soar  over  the  head  of  our  Saviour,  to  a  higher  and 
more  adequate  view  of  the  Divine  Nature,  find  itself  grovelling  at  last  in  the  very  mire  of  beast- 
worship.  It  is,  with  no  impaired  reverence  for  his  Bible,  that  the  Christian  student  turns  from 
such  spectacles  of  human  presumption  and  impiety,  to  muse  on  the  sovereignty  and  adore  the  wis- 
dom of  Him,  who  thus  "  taketli  the  wi§e  in  their  own  craftiness." 


20 

hearth  on  either  side  of  the  Alleghanies ;  let  our  newspapers  drop  the  doc- 
trine, as  a  manna  of  death,  from  their  multitudinous  wings,  around  every 
hamlet  and  habitation  of  the  land,  and  what  were  the  result  ?  Where,  in 
one  short  week,  were  our  freedom,  our  peace,  or  our  morals  ? — all  a  buried 
wreck,  submerged  beneath  a  weltering  ocean  of  misery  and  sin.  The  soul 
with  no  immortal  heritage, — crime  released  from  its  fears  of  the  avenger, — 
and  sorrow  stripped  of  its  hopes  of  a  comforter ; — the  world  without  a  Go- 
vernor, and  the  race  left  fatherless,  with  the  fact  of  the  redemption  and 
the  hope  of  the  resurrection  alike  blotted  out;— surely  these  are  doctrines  no 
false  claims  of  liberality  can  palliate.  And  yet  to  such  tremendous  results 
is  tending  much  of  the  miscalled  liberality  of  our  times. 

This  false  liberalism  is  aiding  the  lawlessness  of  which  we  have  before 
spoken,  in  rejecting  all  regard  to  precedent,  and  all  reverence  for  antiquity. 

5.  But  in  the  natural  antagonism  of  the  human  mind  to  such  excesses  as 
these,  is  seen  rising  a  fifth  principle,  that  of  Siqjerstition ;  and  though  op- 
posed to  the  last  error,  yet  in  its  way  preparing  injury,  from  still  another 
side,  to  the  literary  interests  of  our  nation.  It  may  seem  to  some  idle  to 
talk  of  superstition  as  a  peril  of  the  nineteenth  century.  But  an  age  that 
devours  so  eagerly  the  prodigies  of  Animal  Magnetism,  is  not  quite  entitled 
to  talk  superciliously  of  the  superstition  of  their  forefathers  in  having  been 
believers  in  witchcraft.  Much  of  the  history  of  the  human  mind  is  but  a 
history  of  oscillations  between  opposite  extremes  of  error.  There  is  naturally, 
in  the  soul  of  man,  a  recoil  from  the  narrowness  of  the  mechanical  and  utilita- 
rian spirit,  as  well  as  from  the  lawlessness  and  the  false  liberalism  of  which 
we  have  already  spoken  as  evils  of  the  times ;  while  the  deification  of  passion, 
another  of  those  evils,  makes  welcome  a  religion  of  absolutions  and  indul- 
gences. And  in  this  recoil,  that  antiquity  which  these  former  influences 
would  reject,  this  new  principle  would  not  only  retain  but  idolize.  It  is  dif- 
ficult to  cast  off  all  regard  for  those  who  have  preceded  us.  It  is  not  easy 
to  persuade  ourselves  that  we  are  men  and  that  our  ancestors  were  but  brutes. 
ArA  there  are,  consequently,  several  indications  in  the  science,  literature, 
and  art  of  the  times,  of  a  current  setting  steadily  and  rapidly  towards  reve- 
rence for  the  past,  a  regard  for  the  imaginative  and  the  venerable,  in  place 
of  the  cold  idolatry  of  the  useful ;  a  drifting  back  of  the  popular  mind  to- 
ward the  times  when  the  Roman  church  was  a  dominant  power  in  European 
civilization.  The  Dark  Ages  once  spoken  of  in  our  school-boy  days,  are 
now  more  respectfully  entitled  the  Middle  Ages.  Their  schoolmen,  once 
derided,  are  now  studied  by  some  scholars,  and  quoted  by  more.  Cousin, 
the  leading  metaphysician  of  France,  has  edited  an  unpublished  work  of 
Abelard,  as  some  of  the  Protestant  theologians  of  England  have  been  repub- 
lishing treatises  of  Aquinas.  In  church  music  the  ancient  chant  is 
revived.  In  church  architecture,  the  Gothic,  but  a  few  years  since 
thought  uncouth  and  cumbrous,  and  almost  but  another  name  for  bar- 
barous, the  architecture  of  the  old  time-worn  cathedral,  and  the  ruinous 
abbey,  is  now  regarded  as  the  very  perfection  of  beauty — "  the  frozen  mu- 
sic"6 of  the  art.     In  English  poetry,  the  classical  school  of  Pope  has  given 

6  Mad.  de  Stael. 


21 

place  to  the  romantic  school  of  Scott  and  Byron,  in  which  the  customs  and 
the  religious  opinions  of  the  old  ages  of  chivalry  are  more  or  less  brought 
again  to  recollection;  whilst  most  of  the  scholars  of  Britain  seem  inclined 
to  transfer  the  honors  of  the  Augustan  age  of  their  literature  from  the  reign 
of  Queen  Anne  to  the  elder  days  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  A  powerful  party 
in  its  Established  Church  are  attempting  to  revive  the  doctrines  of  Laud, 
Sancroft,  and  the  school  of  the  Nonjurors;  and  to  develope  the  Catholic 
element  in  their  church  polity  to  an  extent  which  to  others  it  would  seem 
must  render  union  with,  and  subjection  to  Rome,  the  final  and  inevitable 
result  of  the  general  ascendancy  of  the  party.  Indeed  the  practical  cha- 
racter of  the  English  mind,  and  their  disposition  to  reduce  to  action  all 
opinions,  would  seem  to  forbid  that  the  proselytes  of  the  new  school  should 
retain  a  foothold  on  the  steep  declivity  where  their  teachers  contrive  to  stand, 
by  the  aid  of  subtle  distinctions.  The  nation  once  indoctrinated  must  rush 
down  to  Rome.  By  a  sort  of  moral  gravitation  inherent  in  the  Catholic 
system,  the  lesser  must  be  attracted  to  the  larger  body,  and  the  more  recent 
to  the  more  ancient.  All  attempts  to  stay  them,  on  such  a  system,  would 
be  like  arresting  an  avalanche,  midway  on  its  descent,  and  securing  it  to  the 
sides  of  the  Alps  by  strips  of  court-plaster. 

In  the  literature  of  France,  the  contest  a  few  years  since  so  eagerly  waged 
among  that  mercurial  people  between  the  classical  and  the  romantic  schools, 
would  seem  now  to  have  been  decided  to  the  advantage  of  the  latter,  thus 
attaching  the  European  mind,  as  by  a  new  bond,  to  the  Mediaeval  times. 
In  some  of  the  French  historians,  and  the  French  are  now  among  the  best 
of  the  modern  writers  of  history,  a  return  has  even  been  made  to  the  pic- 
turesque style  of  the  old  Mediaeval  chroniclers.  Much  of  this  may  be,  and 
probably  is  the  fleeting  fancy  of  the  season.  And  all  these  things  may  seem 
to  some  minds  but  fantasies  of  the  day,  and  fashions  that  are  soon  to  pass ; 
but  it  should  be  remembered  that  such  fantasies  have  in  passing  shaken 
thrones,  and  subverted  dynasties  ;  and  that  such  fashions  of  feeling,  if  we 
call  them  so,  have  maddened  whole  nations,  and  in  the  days  of  the  French 
,  Revolution  armed  France,  almost  as  one  man,  against  the  rest  of  Europe, 
as  in  the  days  of  the  Crusades  they  had  hurled  Europe,  in  one  embattled 
mass,  upon  Asia. 

Favored  by  these,  among  other  influences,  the  Church  which  is  the  great 
representative  of  superstition  in  Christendom — it  is  the  Romish  Church  we 
mean — is  rising  rapidly  to  some  of  her  lost  eminence  and  influence.  She 
is  multiplying  amongst  us  her  colleges,  many  of  them  under  the  charge  of 
that  order,  the  Jesuits,  who  were  once  the  most  renowned  instructors  of 
Europe.  She  is  entering  our  common  schools,  and  laying  her  hand  upon 
the  Bible  to  eject  it.  Upon  the  field  of  Foreign  Missions  she  is  jostling 
eagerly  each  successful  Protestant  Mission  in  Asia,  in  Oceauica,  or  on  our 
own  continent.  De  Smet,  a  Jesuit  Missionary,  boasts  of  the  hundreds  of 
Indians  baptized  near  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  River,  far  beyond  the 
Rocky  Mountains,  and  rumors  are  already  spread  that  the  Papal  See  is  to 
be  requested  to  constitute  Oregon  into  a  Romish  bishoprick.7    But  what  is 

7  Since  created. 


22 

far  more  wondrous  is  the  rejuvenescence  of  this  Church  in  the  old  strong 
holds  of  Protestantism  in  Europe.  Germany,  a  few  years  since,  saw  scho- 
lars like  the  Stolbergs  and  the  Schlegels  passing  over  from  Protestantism 
into  the  Papal  communion.  Scotland,  over  whose  gray  mountains'  seems 
yet  brooding  the  stern  and  solemn  earnestuess  of  her  old  reformers, — the 
land  where  Knox  destroyed  the  monasteries,  "  dinging  down"  the  rookeries 
that  the  rooks  might  not  return,  has  seen  of  late  her  Romish  chapels  not 
only  but  her  Romish  nunneries  erected,  aud  not  left  untenanted  by  votaries. 
In  England,  the  bulwark  of  European  Protestantism,  the  progress  of  the 
Romish  Church  in  numbers,  wealth,  boldness,  and  influence,  within  the 
last  few  years,  has  been  most  rapid.  And  in  some  portions  of  the  earth, 
this  artful  and  versatile  power,  rich  in  the  arts  of  centuries  of  diplomacy, 
and  so  long  the  ally  of  Despotism,  and  herself  almost  an  incarnation  of 
Oppression,  seems  coquetting  with  Democracy,  and  courting  the  spirit  of 
Social  Progress.  It  reminds  one  of  the  prediction  of  the  excellent  Bengel, 
who,  with  all  his  errors  in  prophecy,  was  a  scholar  eminent  for  learning, 
acuteness  and  profound  piety,  that  the  last  days  would  witness  a  league  of 
Socinianism  and  Romanism — the  spirit  of  tradition  and  the  spirit  of  ration- 
alism. In  fact  this  Apostate  Church,  branded  as  the  Babylon  of  New 
Testament  prophecy,  seems  disguising  her  wrinkles,  and  painting  her  face 
until  it  is  rent8  again, — rent,  we  mean,  with  some  unseemly  contradictions 
of  her  old  principles.  Like  Jezebel,  in  her  gay  old  age,  with  tired  head 
and  lacquered  eyes,  she  is  seen  looking  out  from  her  palace  windows,  not 
like  the  relict  of  Ahab,  to  upbraid,  but  to  soothe  and  to  allure  the  Jehu  of 
the  age — the  Spirit  of  Radicalism,  and  the  party  of  the  movement,  as  with 
glowing  axle,  it  drives  the  chariot-wheels  of  innovation  over  every  obstacle. 
And  literature  must  feel,  and  is  already  feeling,  in  various  departments,  the 
weight  of  this  new  element,  the  element  of  superstition  amid  the  conflicting 
influences  of  our  age.  The  contributions,  for  instance,  of  Romish  authors 
to  English  literature,  have  both  in  amount  and  ability  been  trebled  probably 
within  the  last  twenty  years.  As  to  the  cramping  and  degrading  power  of 
all  superstition  on  the  mind,  the  restraints  it  imposes  on  the  march  of  science, 
and  its  violence  wrought  against  physical  as  well  as  moral  truth,  let  the 
story  of  Galileo  tell,  and  let  the  records  of  Spain  and  her  inquisition  attest. 
We  would  never  forget,  in  speaking  strongly  of  the  errors  of  the  Romish 
Church,  the  piety  and  genius  that  have  been  found  in  members  of  her  com- 
munion. The  memory  of  her  Kempis,  her  Fenelon,  her  Pascal,  her  Ar- 
naulds,  and  her  Nicole,  must  ever  remain  dear  to  the  Christian.  But  we 
would  remember  that  to  some  of  the  best  of  these  her  children,  she  was  but 
a  harsh  and  persecuting  step-mother,  and  that  she  cast  out  that  most  able  and 
devout  body  of  men,  the  Jansenistsof  France,  with  ignominious  cruelty. — 
branding  their  name,  suppressing  their  books,  and  sparing  not  their  dead. 
Nor  while  we  cherish,  with  the  tenderest  reverence  and  affection,  the  names 
of  some  among  her  saints  whose  shoe-latchets  we  are  not  worthy  to  unloose, 
can  we  forget  the  wrongs  she  has  inflicted  upon  humanity,  and  her  blasphe- 

s  Jerem.  iv.  30. 


23 

mies  against  God, — can  we  blanch  the  long  and  dark  catalogue  of  her  cor- 
ruptions and  errors,  or  dare  to  overlook  the  sentence  of  prophecy,  branding 
her  with  infamy,  and  dooming  her  disastrous  splendor  to  a  fatal  eclipse,  and 
her  power  to  a  final  and  utter  overthrow. 

Here  then,  if  we  have  not  deceived  ourselves,   are  perils  besetting  the 
future  course  of  our  literature,  not  only  real  but  formidable.     Many  of  the 
details,  that  were  unavoidable,   may  have  seemed  to  some  of  our  hearers 
trivial,  but  in  our  view  the}-  are  trivial,  only  as  are  the  weeds  which  float  in 
the  edge  of  the  Gulf-stream.      Light  and  valueless  in  themselves,  they  yet 
serve  to  remind  the  wary  navigator  what  coast  he  is  nearing,  and  what  the 
currents  whose  noiseless  power  is  drifting  his  bark  away  from  her  appointed 
course.     Did  any  one  of  these  several  causes  operate  separately,  it  would  be 
more  easy  to  prognosticate  from  the  signs  of  the  times,  regarding  the  desti- 
nies of  American  literature.     The  utilitarian  and  mechanical  spirit,  would 
threaten  our  literary  glories  with  the  fate  of  Holland,  whose  early  splendor 
of  scholarship  was  so  fatally  beclouded   by  her   subsequent  lust  of  gain. 
The  prevalence  of  passion  would  conform  us  to  the  imbecile,  luxurious,  tri- 
fling and  vindictive  character  that  mars  so  much  the  glory  of  modern  Italy. 
The  reign  of  lawlessness  would  revive  in  our  history  the  later  ages  of  Re- 
publican Greece,  its  anarchy,  violence  and  misery.     The  sway  of  a  false 
liberalism  would  renew  on  American  shores  the  crimes  and  sufferings  of 
the  reign  of  terror  in  France,  when  Anacharsis  Clootz  led  his  motley  repre- 
sentatives of  the  whole  human  race  to  do  homage  to  the  French  Republic, 
and  the  A.rchbishop  of  Paris  abjured  Christianity  ;  as  the  victory  of  supersti- 
tion would  bring  us  into  a  resemblance  with  the  former  condition  of  Spain, 
when  rejoicing,  as  her  king  did,  in  the  title  of  the  "  Most  Faithful"'  among  the 
subject  monarchs  of  the  Romish   See,  the  country  saw  absolutism  filling 
the  throne,  and   the  inquisition  filling  every  other  place.     Utilitarianism, 
the  first  of  these  evil  influences,  would  replace  the  Bible  by  the  leger,  the 
price  current,  and  the  bank  note  list.     Passion,  the  second,  would  fill  our 
hands  with  the  viol,  the  song-book,  and  the  stiletto,  or  perchance  the  bowie 
knife.     The  third,  or  lawlessness,  would  compel   every   man  to  put  on 
sword  and  pouch,  and  turn  robber  and  homicide  in  self-defence,  snatching 
what  he  could  and  standing  sentry  over  his  spoils.     The  reign  of  a  liberal- 
ism, such  as  we  have  seen  in  Germany,  would  send  us  to  the  study  of  Po- 
lyglott  grammars,  and  furnish  us  for  our  religious  reading  with  a  manual 
of  Pantheistic  Philosophy:  while  the  domination  of  the  fifth  would  give  us 
the  chaplet  of  beads,  and  the  index  of  prohibited  books  to  guide  our  pravers, 
and  direct  our  studies ;  and  meanwhile  the  inquisition  would  take  under  its- 
paternal  charge  the  erring  and  refractory  press.     But  acting,  as  we  have 
said,  not  separately,  but  conjointly,  it  is  more  difficult  to  predict  the  coming 
history  of  our  literature.     The  several  causes  we  have  indicated  will,  when 
acting  as  antagonist  forces,  hardly  neutralize,  although  they  may  often  ex- 
asperate, each  other ;  and  some  of  them  are  likely  ultimately  to  acquire  the 
ascendancy  over  and  extinguish  the  others. 

The  influence  of  a  demoralized  and  demoralizing  literature  it  is  scarce 
possible  to  portray  in  too  gloomy  colors.     There  were  days  in  the  history 


24 

of  revolutionary  France  when  it  would  have  been  difficult  to  say  which 
had  been  the  more  destructive  engine,  the  press  as  worked  by  Marat,  or 
the  guillotine  as  managed  by  Robespierre.  If  the  one  was  reeking  contin- 
ually with  fresh  blood,  and  heaped  up  its  hecatombs  of  the  dead,  the  other 
ran  with  a  more  deadly  venom,  that  corroded  the  hearts  of  the  living.  Our 
cheap  press,  from  its  powers  of  diffusive  influence,  would  make  a  literature 
that  should  be  merely  frivolous,  and  not  flagrantly  vicious,  one  of  no  little 
harm  to  the  mental  soundness  of  the  nation.  A  race  of  heroes,  such  as 
Plutarch  portrays,  could  never  grow  up  if  fed  only  on  the  spoon-meats  and 
syllabubs  of  an  elegant  literature,  and  finding  their  entertainment  in  the 
lispings  and  pulings  of  a  feeble  sentimentalism.  If  the  press  be  more 
than  frivolous,  if  it  have  become  licentious,  its  ravages  on  a  reading  com- 
munity, and  in  a  free  country,  and  such  a  community  and  country  God  has 
made  ours,  are  incalculable.  For  character  and  private  peace,  for  honesty, 
and  morals,  for  the  domestic  charities,  and  for  life  itself,  there  remains  no 
asylum  on  earth,  when  such  a  press  is  allowed  to  run  a  muck  against  the  vic- 
tims that  its  caprice,  its  interest  or  its  pique  may  select.  There  have  been 
newspapers  circulating  in  Christian  America,  that  would  have  been  hailed 
in  the  cities  of  the  plain,  on  the  day  ere  the  avenging  fires  fell  from  Heaven, 
as  the  utterances  of  no  uncongenial  spirit,  the  work  of  men  morally  accli- 
mated to  breathe  that  atmosphere  of  putridity  and  death.  There  have 
been  seen,  as  editors,  men  whose  hearts  seem  to  have  become  first  ossified, 
and  then  carious,  in  the  exercise  of  their  vocation,  alike  hardened  in  feel- 
ing and  corrupted  in  principle,  men  who  had  no  mercy,  no  conscience  and 
no  shame.  And  such  men  have  been  not  only  suffered  but  applauded, 
courted  and  bribed,  while  "  a  reading  public,"  to  use  a  phrase  of  the  times, 
has  been  found  to  gather  eagerly  around  the  moral  slaughter  houses,  over 
which  such  spirits  presided  ;  and  has  delighted  itself  in  snuffing  the  fumes 
of  each  fresh  sacrifice,  feeding  on  the  garbage,  and  drenching  their  souls 
in  the  puddles  there  supplied.  The  extent  of  the  moral  taint  already  spread 
from  such  foul  sources  of  corruption,  who  can  estimate  ?  Were  such  to 
become  the  pervading  and  controlling  spirit  of  our  literature,  that  literature, 
and  the  society  which  sustains  it,  must  collapse  and  perish,  a  loathsome 
mass  of  festering  corruption. 

For  a  profligate  literature  destroys  itself  and  the  community  who  patron- 
ize it.  Let  literature  be  sold  into  bondage  to  immorality,  and  its  days  are 
thenceforward  numbered,  as  well  by  the  very  nature  of  the  human  mind, 
as  by  the  laws  of  the  divine  government.  Genius,  when  grinding,  like  a 
blind  Samson,  in  the  prison-house  of  vice,  ultimately  perishes  in  its  task,  and 
leaves  no  heir.  It  may  not  so  seem  at  first.  A  delirious  frenzy  may  seem 
to  call  forth  fresh  eloquence  and  harmony,  and  every  Muse,  dissolute  and 
shameless,  may  wave  aloft  the  thyrsus  of  a  mad  Bacchante.  Science  and 
art  and  wit  and  eloquence  have  thus  aided  in  the  erection  of  shrines  to  im- 
morality ;  but  they  have  languished  and  died  amid  their  toils.  A  profligate 
people  soon  ceases  to  be  intelligent,  and  their  literature  loses  all  living  power, 
all  ability  to  perpetuate  itself.  The  literature  of  the  dead  past  is  soon  all 
that  remains  to  a  vicious  community.     And  when  the  proudest  monument 


25 

of  unprincipled  talent  and  perverted  genius  has  been  completed,  and  stood 
perfect  in  beauty,  its  last  chapiter  carved  and  fixed,  its  topmost  pinnacle 
glittering  on  high,  its  last  statue  polished  and  fitted  in  its  appointed  niche, 
the  nation  may  have  exulted  in  the  splendor  of  their  immoral  poetry,  and 
eloquence  and  art.  But  that  nation,  even  in  the  hour  of  its  triumph,  stands 
before  its  trophies,  bereft  of  the  talents  that  had  aided  in  its  work,  desolate 
and  lone,  like  him  who  reared  from  its  ruins  the  city  of  palm-trees,  the 
fated  city  over  which  hung  the  old  but  unslumbering  curse  of  Heaven. 
His  children  fell  as  the  walls  of  his  new  foundation  rose ;  and  he  stood 
at  the  last  in  the  home  he  had  reared,  a  solitary  man,  with  none  to  inhe- 
rit his  labors.  "For  Hiel  the  Bethelite  in  those  days  built  Jericho.  He 
laid  the  foundations  thereof  in  Abiram,  his  first-born,  and  set  up  the  gates 
thereof  in  his  youngest  son  Segub."  Literature  slays  its  children  when 
building  under  God's  curse.  Talent  prostituted  in  the  cause  of  vice  pines 
amid  its  successes  and  dies ;  and  an  imbruted  community,  it  is  generally 
seen,  by  a  just  retribution  of  Providence,  soon  buries  in  oblivion  the  litera- 
ture that  has  corrupted  and  barbarized  it. 

Whether  then  we  love  the  cause  of  letters  or  of  religion,  whether  our 
country  or  its  honor,  whether  science  or  piety  be  dear  to  us,  we  need  to 
dread  a  corrupt  literature,  and  we  have  cause  with  jealousy  to  watch  every 
influence  that  may  threaten  to  work  such  corruption.  We  have  seen  that 
perils  of  this  kind  are  not  wanting  amongst  us. 

II.  But  where,  it  may  be  asked,  is  the  remedy  of  the  evils  that  beset  us, 
and  against  these  perils  is  it  in  our  power  to  find  and  apply  any  pre- 
servative ? 

Such  defence,  we  reply  then,  against  the  possible  corruption  of  our  lite- 
rature is  not,  amongst  us  at  least,  to  be  found  in  legislation.  We  look  with 
jealousy  on  every  thing  that  seems  to  abridge  the  freedom  of  the  press. 
And  again  legislation  is  with  us  but  the  emanation  of  the  popular  taste. 
When  that  taste  has  itself  become  vitiated,  it  will  of  course  hardly  seek  to 
reform  itself,  or  submit  to  the  necessary  restrictions.  Nor  is  there  a  suffi- 
cient guard  in  education.  Our  newspapers  are  in  this  land  almost  an  inte- 
gral part  of  our  education,  and  no  process  that  reached  the  schools  only 
and  not  the  journals  of  the  land  would  be  sufficient.  And  our  scholastic 
education  is  itself  but  the  utterance  of  the  moral  taste  and  fashion  of  the 
times,  and  will  therefore  be  very  slow  to  detect  and  check  its  own  defi- 
ciencies. Nor  is  there  hope  for  us  in  philosophy.  That  never  yet  reached 
the  masses,  and  often  in  the  classes  it  has  reached,  it  has  been  like  the  Epi- 
curean philosophy  in  Roman  society,  a  fermenting  principle  that  hastened 
the  decay  and  dissolution  of  the  commonwealth.  Not  in  general  knowledge-, 
for  that  may  be  the  knowledge  of  evil  quite  as  much  as  of  good,  and  the 
intelligence  that  stores  the  head  and  neglects  the  heart,  has  cursed  many, 
but  saved  none.  And  if  all  these  resources  are  insufficient,  what  have  we 
left? 

The  remedy  that  shall  guard  and  purge,  and  invigorate  and  fructify  our 
literature,  must  have  power,  and  to  possess  power  it  must  come  from  with- 
out ; — not  from  man,  not  from  society — but  from  something  older,  higher 

4 


26 

and  mightier  than  society  or  man.  But  to  avail  with  us,  it  must  not  only 
have  power,  but  popular  power.  Our  government  is  a  government  of  pop- 
ular opinion,  and  no  doctrine  that  confines  itself  to  the  schools  or  to  certain 
select  classes  in  society,  a  sacerdotal  or  an  aristocratic  class,  can  suffice. 
It  must  also  have  permanent  power,  and  be  beyond  the  reach  of  change 
from  the  changing  customs  and  fashions  of  the  time.  And  where  shall  such 
a  remedy  be  found  ;  rebuking  a  cold  utilitarianism,  curbing  the  fierceness 
of  passion,  awing  the  lawless,  enlightening  and  shaming  the  falsely  liberal, 
and  emancipating  the  slave  of  superstition  ?  Looking  at  the  variety  and  com- 
plexity of  the  evils  to  be  overcome,  where  it  may  be  asked  shall  we  seek  it  ? 
Human  authority  is  insufficient,  and  mortal  wisdom  is  dumb.  Yet  we  believe 
that  such  a  principle  of  recovery  and  conservatism  exists,  and  one  that  has  in 
perfection  all  the  several  elements  needed  to  success.  It  has  power  ;  for  it 
comes  from  God  and  stretches  into  eternity — popular  power ;  for  it  was  made 
by  the  maker  of  man's  heart,  and  has  in  all  ages  of  history  and  amid  all 
varieties  of  culture  proved  its  power  over  the  masses,  and  commended  itself 
to  the  hearts  of  the  people — permanent  power ;  for  it  has  lasted  while  em- 
pires have  fallen,  and  sects  and  schools  of  philosophy  have  risen,  vaunted, 
flourished,  faded  and  been  forgotten.  It  claims  all  times,  and  its  rewards 
and  denunciations  are  fetched  from  beyond  the  grave  and  lay  hold  upon 
another  world.  Is  it  again  asked :  Where  is  this  remedial  agent — this 
branch  of  healing  for  the  bitter  waters,  the  Marah  fountains  of  our  lite- 
rature ? 

We  answer  :  It  is  the  cross  of  Christ.     Let  us  not  shrink  to  say  it. 

The  Cross  of  Christ   is    the    only    Conservative  Principle 
of  our  Literature. 

Towards  this  point,  as  will  be  seen,  all  our  earlier  remarks  have  tended  ; 
and  it  will  furnish  the  theme  of  all  that  yet  remain  to  be  made.  Nothing 
else  can  save  our  literature.  This  can — though  alone,  it  is  sufficient. 
The  cross  of  Christ,  we  say  it  again,  is  the  only  conservative  principle  of 
our  literature.  Nor  let  any  be  startled.  Bacon  spoke  of  Theology  as  the 
haven  of  all  science.  It  was  said  by  a  highly  gifted  woman,  Madame  de 
Stael,  who  cannot  be  charged  as  a  professional  or  prejudiced  witness  in  the 
matter,  that  the  whole  history  of  the  world  resolved  itself  naturally  into 
two  great  eras,  that  before  Christ's  coming,  and  that  which  has  followed 
his  advent.  And  we  find  Muller,  a  distinguished  scholar  and  historian  of 
Germany,  holding  this  language  as  to  his  favorite  science,  in  which  he  had 
made  such  eminent  proficiency.  Animadverting  on  a  defect  of  Herder  in 
his  "  Philosophy  of  History,"  "  I  find,"  said  Muller,  "  every  thing  there  but 
Christ,  and  what  is  the  history  of  the  world  without  Christ  ?" 9 

The  whole  history  of  our  world  has  looked  forward  or  backward  to  the 
fatal  tree  reared  on  grim  Golgotha.  The  oblation  there  made  had  the 
promise  and  immutable  purpose  of  God  with  it  to  insure  its  efficacy  over 
the  whole  range  of  man's  history  antecedent  and  subsequent,  and  along  the 

y  Tholuck  iu  Princeton  Bibl.  Repertory,  vol.  if,  p.229. 


27 

whole  course  of  the  Mystery  of  Divine  Providence,  as  seen  in  the  govern- 
ment of  the  world. 

Let  us,  we  entreat  you,  be  understood.  By  the  Cross  of  Christ  we  do 
not  mean  the  imaged  cross,  as  borne  on  the  banners  of  the  Inquisition,  with 
the  emblems  of  Judgment  and  Mercy  floating  over  the  scenes  of  the  Auto 
da  Fe,  where  the  judgment  was  without  justice,  and  ihe  mercy  was  a  mere 
lie.10     Nor  the  cross  as  borne  on  the  shoulder  of  the  crusader,  whilst,  plead- 


10  A  rugged  and  knotty  cross,  with  the  sword  of  Justice  displayed  on  one  side  and  the  olive 
branch  of  Mercy  on  the  other,  was  the  device  borne  on  the  banner  of  the  Spanish  Inquisition, 
and  its  motto  was  "  Arise,  O  Lord,  and  plead  thine  own  cause."— Limborchi  Histor.  Inq.  Amsiel., 
1692,  p.  370.)  The  inscription  on  that  of  the  Inquisition  at  Goa  was  "  Misericordia  et  Justitia," 
and  its  emblem  a  figure  of  St.  Dominic,  with  the  right  hand  proffering  the  olive  branch  and  the  left 
displaying  the  sword.— (76 idem.) 

The  remark  in  the  text,  on  the  utter  falsehood  of  the  claims  made  by  the  Inquisition  to  mercy, 
refers  mainly  to  its  usual  forms  in  passing  judgment.  As  the  canonical  law  forbids  ecclesiastics 
from  shedding  blood,  the  clerical  judges  of  that  tremendous  tribunal  were  accustomed,  in  handing 
over  the  heretic  to  the  secular  courts  for  execution,  to  annex  the  earnest  recommendation  that  he 
should  be  treated  by  these  secular  judges  with  mercy,  and  not  harmed  in  life  or  limb,  whilst  expect- 
ing and  even  requiring  that  these  executioners  of  their  will  should  destroy  limbs  and  life  in  the  fire. 
Llorente,  in  his  history  of  the  Spanish  Inquisition,  animadverts  severely  on  this  hollow  and  heart- 
less mockery  of  Christian  tenderness.  It  appears  in  a  very  prominent  manner  on  the  singular  re- 
cords which  Limborch,  an  earlier  and  Protestant  historian,  published,  as  an  appendix  to  his  His- 
tory, containing  the  sentences  of  the  Inquisition  established  at  Toulouse,  in  France,  and  among 
whose  victims  were  found  many  of  the  Albigenses  and  Waldenses.  The  sentences  are  the  identi- 
cal records  of  the  sacred  office,  at  Toulouse,  from  1307  to  1323. 

Amongst  their  victims  was  John  Philibert,  a  priest  of  the  Romish  church,  who  had,  after  having 
been  sent  to  apprehend  a  fugitive  Waldensian,  become,  himself,  a  convert  to  the  sect.  The  Church 
*'  having  nothing  more  in  her  power  to  do,  adequate  to  his  demerits,  (cum  ecclesia  ultra  non  ha- 
beat  quidfaciat  pro  tuis  demeritis  contra  te,)  pronounced  sentence  of  degradation  from  the  priest- 
hood ;  and,  upon  his  degradation,  that  he  should  be  abandoned  to  the  judgment  of  the  secular 
court,  at  the  same  time  affectionately  beseeching  such  secular  court,  as  the  requirements  of  the 
canon  law  demand,  to  preserve  to  thee  life  and  limbs  unharmed,"  (eandem  affeciuose  rogantes  prout 
suadent  canonica  sanctioned  ut  tibi  vitam  et  membra  illibata  conservet.),  p.  255.  Two  other  W  al- 
densians  are,  with  the  same  gentle  phraseology  and  earnest  entreaty,  committed  to  the  secular 
court— (p.  265.)  In  the  recorded  degradation  of  Philibert  from  his  priestly  office,  (p.  275,)  the 
recommendation  of  mercy  is  repeated  with  new  emphasis.  The  seneschal  of  Toulouse,  the  secu- 
lar judge  into  whose  hands  he  passes,  is  "  earnestly  required  and  entreated  to  moderate  his  sen- 
tence regarding  the  heretic,  so  that  it  extend  not  to  peril  of  death  or  mutilation  of  limb." — (Ipsum 
tamen  instanter  requirimus  et  rogamus  ut  ciira  mortis  periculum  et  membri  mutilationem  suam 
circa  te  sententi am  moderetur)  A  husband  and  wife,  Waldensians,  are  again  committed  to  the 
mercies  of  the  secular  tribunal  in  the  like  select  and  chary  phrases,  (p.  291.)  A  similar  affection- 
ate entreaty  (affectuose  rogantes)  is  used  in  delivering  a  female  Waldensian  to  the  chief  judge  of 
the  king,  the  lieutenant  of  the  seneschal  of  Toulouse,  (p.  331,)  and  two  Beguins  to  the  same  secu- 
lar judge,  (p.  336,)  and  yet  two  other  Beguins,  who  are  relinquished  into  the  same  hands,  (p.  393.) 

It  was,  then,  part  of  the  gracious  etiquette  of  the  Inquisitorial  tribunal,  like  Pilate,  at  the  sen- 
tence of  Christ,  to  wash  her  hands  clean  of  the  blood  of  those  she  gave  up.  More  eager  than  Pi- 
late, she  insisted  on  the  penalty  she  required  others  to  inflict.  But  chary  as  she  was  of  allowing 
the  violent  death  which  followed  to  appear  as  her  act,  or  to  stain  her  records,  the  truth  breaks  out 
in  several  places  on  these  same  records  ;  as  where  one  Petrus  Lucensis,  who  abjured  his  errors, 
speaks  of  some  earlier  victims  of  the  Inquisition  as  having  been  condemned  by  the  inquisitors  and 
prelates  of  the  Roman  church,  and  "  left  to  the  secular  arm  and  burnt"— (condemnati  per  inqui- 
sitores  et  prelatos  ecclesia  Romance,  et  relicti  seculari  brachio  et  combusti,)  p.  360.  The  for- 
mula of  abandonment  to  the  secular  arm  was  followed  by  the  stake  as  its  invariable  sequent — "  con- 
demnati  et  per  secularem  curiam  combusti,'''  pp.  310,  313,  319,  320,  323,  &c. 

And  the  inquisitors  not  only  expected  this  sequent,  but,  as  it  appears  from  Llorente's  history  of 
the  kindred  Inquisition  in  Spain,  they  required  and  enforced  it.  It  is  from  the  second  edition  of 
his  original  work,  as  published  at  Paris,  in  1813.  in  4  vols.,  8vo,  and  not  from  the  American  re-prh.t 
ef  his  abridged  work,  that  we  quote.    The  sentence  of  the  Inquisition,  he  remarks,  closes  with  a 


2S 

ing  the  name  of  Christ,  he  moved  through  scenes  of  rapine  and  massacre 
to  lay  his  bloody  hand  on  the  Holy  Sepulchre.  Nor  do  we  mean  the  cross, 
as,  carved  and  gilded,  it  is  seen  glittering  on  the  spires  of  a  cathedral,  or 
hung  in  jewels  of  gold  around  the  maiden's  neck,  or  embroidered  on  the 


prayer  to  the  judges  to  treat  the  sufferer  with  humanity,  (I.  122 :)  but  there  were,  he  observes, 
several  instances  in  which  the  secular  magistrate,  choosing  to  take  the  inquisitors  at  their  word, 
and  to  suppose  their  language  sincere,  did  not  send  the  culprit  to  punishment,  and  the  judge  was, 
in  consequence,  arraigned  himself,  as  one  suspected  of  heresy,  (I.  125.)  "  The  prayer,  then,"  it  is 
his  language  that  we  use,  "was  but  a  vain  formality,  dictated  by  hypocrisy."-— (Ibid.)  So  again, 
in  animadverting  on  the  case  of  Marine  de  Guevara,  (II.  253,  254,)  he  exclaims,  "  Who  would  not 
be  moved  with  indignation  to  see  this  act  of  the  tribunal  closing  with  a  recommendation,  on  the 
part  of  the  inquisitors,  to  the  royal  judge  in  ordinary,  that  he  should  use  with  the  accused  gentle- 
ness and  mercy,  whilst  they  were  not  ignorant  as  to  what  was  to  ensue?  *  *  *  If,  on  the  con- 
demned being  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  corregidor,  this  officer  should  allow  himself  to  sentence 
the  victim  to  perpetual  imprisonment  in  some  fortress,  instead  of  sentencing  to  capital  punishment, 
they  would  have  carried  their  complaints  to  the  king,  and  perhaps  even  have  launched  their  cen- 
sures against  him  and  have  brought  him  to  judgment  as  one  guilty  of  having  opposed  himself  to 
the  measures  of  the  holy  office — of  having  violated  his  oath  to  lend  to  them  aid  and  assistance,  and 
of  being  a  favorer  of  heretics.  What,  then,  means  this  hypocritical  affectation?  *  *  It  is  for 
their  purposes  to  induce  the  belief  that  they  have  no  share  in  the  death  of  the  accused,  who  is  their 
neighbor,  and  that  thus  they  have  not  incurred  the  penalties  of  ecclesiastical  irregularity,  pro- 
nounced against  those  priests  who  have  had  a  share  in  the  death  of  any  person."  Llorente,  it  will 
be  remembered,  was  a  Romanist,  had,  himself,  been  for  years  an  officer  of  the  Inquisition,  and 
wrote  with  its  records  before  him. 

Of  such  infamous  jugglery  with  truth  and  the  forms  of  Christian  kindness  it  is  not,  then,  harsh  to 
say,  that ''  its  mercy  Kas  a  mere  7?"e." 

Several  of  the  victims  of  the  French  Inquisition  are  charged,  amongst  other  offences,  with  con- 
fessing their  sins  to  Waldensian  or  other  pastors,  "  uko,  as  they  f:netc,icere  not  priests  ordained  by 
any  bishop  of  the  Romish  church"— Limborch,  pp.264,  226,  230,234,  236,  237,  238,239,  240,241,242, 
290,  &c.  The  tenet  of  apostolic  succession,  as  coming  through  Rome,  and  necessary  to  a  valid  min- 
istry, was  then  one  element  in  the  storm  of  wrath  that  burst  upon  these  sufferers.  One  of  them, 
Raymond  Dominic,  who  seems  to  have  been  arraigned  in  1322,  is  charged,  amongst  other  errors, 
with  holding  that  "  the  baptism  of  water,  given  by  the  Church  to  boys  was  of  no  worth,  because 
the  boys  consented  not,  but  rather  wept."  We  give  the  misspelt  Latin  of  the  inquisitorial  scribe  : 
"  Item  quod  baptismus  aquef actus  per  ecclesiam  pueris  nichil  valebat,quia  puen  non  consenciebant 
ymoflebant:' — p.  348.  He  and  his  wife  had  been  fugitives  for  eleven  years.  When  asked  why.  at 
his  first  citation,  he  had  not  appeared  and  confessed,  but  fled,  he  replied,  it  was  from  pity  for  his 
seven  children  of  either  sex,  for  whom  he  feared  that  they  would  die  of  hunger  if  he  and  his  wife 
had  been  then  imprisoned,  and  that  he  proposed  to  come  in  and  confess  when  his  children  should 
have  become  able  to  help  themselves. — p.  349.  So  also  his  wife,  being  asked  the  reason  of  their 
flight,  replied,  it  was  chiefly  from  love  and  pity  for  their  little  boys — " propter  amoremet  compas- 
sionem  puerorum  suorum  parvulorum1'' — who  would  perish  of  hunger. — p.  250.  Such  incidents  re- 
veal some  of  the  scenes  of  domestic  anguish  this  ruthless  tribunal  created. 

The  same  records  of  the  Tribunal  at  Toulouse  may  throw  some  light  on  a  question  lately  agitat- 
ed— whether  the  oath  of  the  Romish  bishop,  taken  at  his  consecration,  is  to  be  translated  as  re- 
quiring of  him  the  persecution  of  heretics.  In  the  proceedings  of  the  French  Inquisition  we  find 
the  Latin  word  in  question  occurring  in  the  oaths  taken  of  the  secular  magistrates  to  aid  the  Inqui- 
sition in  the  detection  and  suppression  of  heresy  ;  in  the  penances  assigned  those  who  recanted 
their  heresy  and  were  to  prove  their  sincerity  by  informing  against  and  delivering  up  others  ;  in  the 
forms  of  abjuration  imposed  upon  penitents;  aud  in  the  complaints  of  the  sufferers  against  the  Ro- 
mish church  for  its  treatment  of  them  ;  and  again  in  the  statement,  by  her  own  officers,  of  that 
church's  conduct  towards  errorists.  On  page  1,  the  secular  magistrates  of  Toulouse,  under  the  French 
king,  are  sworn  to  defend  the  faith  of  the  holy  Roman  church,  and  to  "pursue  (or  persecute)  and 
take,  and  cause  to  be  taken,  accuse  and  denounce  to  the  church  and  inquisitors,  heretics,  their  dis- 
ciples, favorers  and  harborers — "  htreticos  credentes,  fautores  et  rectptalore.s  eorumdem  perse- 
quemur,  Sec.  This  was  sworn  on  the  Holy  Gospels  of  God,  and  a  similar  oath  was  taken  ot  the 
"  consults"  of  Toulouse,  p.  1.  Similar  oaths  may  be  found  imposed  on  the  secular  tribunals,  in  pp. 
292,  334,  &c.  So  those  admitted  to  penance,  on  recantation,  are  charged,  "  Praterea  perseqnamini 
heretics  quibuscunqiie  nominibtis  censeontur  et  credentes  et  fautores  et  reuptatoies  et  defen- 


29 

slipper  of  a  pontiff.11  The  cross,  as  we  understand  it,  has  no  sympathy  with 
a  religion  of  shows  and  spectacles,  of  mummeries  and  pageants,  of  incense 
and  music,  and  long-drawn  aisles,  and  painted  windows,  and  gorgeous  pic- 
tures,  and  precious  statuary. 


soj'es  eorum,"  to  persecute  heretics,  by  whatever  names  they  be  designated,  and  their  disciples,  fa- 
vorers, harborers  and  defenders,  p.  341 ;  and  a  similar  penance,  on  p.  347,  includes  also  "  fugitives  for 
heresy."  A  William  Garrick,  Professor  of  Laws,  admitted  to  penance,  but  banished  from  the  king- 
dom of  France,  in  the  year  1321,  "  swears  and  promises  to  the  best  of  his  power  to  persecute  here- 
tics of  every  condemned  sect,  and  those  whom  he  knows  or  believes  to  be  fugitives  for  heresy,  and 
to  cause  them,  to  the  best  of  his  power,  to  be  apprehended  and  delivered  up  to  the  inquisitors  of 
heretical  pravity" — p.  283.  Certain  offenders,  condemned  to  imprisonment,  "  abjure  heresy  and 
swear  to  keep  hold  and  defend  the  orthodox  faith — to  persecute  heretics  and  their  favorers,  and  to 
disclose  and  reveal  them,  wherever  known  to  be."  p.  202.  A  relapsed  Waldensian  is  charged  with 
falsifying  his  oath,  "  parere  mandatis  ecclesie  et  inquisitorum  et  persequi  Valdcnses  et  alius  here- 
ticos,"  to  obey  the  mandates  of  the  church  and  its  inquisitors,  andpersecute  Waldensians  and  other 
heretics,  and  is  charged  with  thus  returning,  tanquam  earns  ad  vomilum,  p.  254.  So  the  church, 
describing  her  own  conduct,  uses  the  same  word.  Philibert,  already  named,  one  of  their  own  priests, 
whom  the  purer  faith  of  the  Waldensians  had  won  over,  is  charged  with  holding  these  Waldensians 
to  be  good  men  and  a  good  sect,  and  of  good  faith  in  which  men  might  be  saved,  "  although  he  knew 
that  the  Roman  church  and  the  inquisitors  of  heretics  persecuted  and  condemned  them" — quamvis 

SCIRET    QUOD    ECCLESIA  RoMANA    ET    INQUISITORES   HERETICORUM    PERSEQUERENTUR    IPSOS    ET    CON- 

dempnarent.  Here  is  the  church  describing  herself,  p.  254.  John  Brayssan,  another  of  these  Wal- 
densians, is  charged  with  belonging  to  that  sect  of  Waldensians,  or  Poor  Men  of  Lyons,  "  which  the 
sacred  Roman  church,  mother  and  mistress  of  all  (churches,)  long  since  has  condemned  as  heretical, 
and  the  same,  as  being  truly  such,  persecutes  and  condemns" — quam  sacrosancta  Romana  ecclesia 
mater  omnium  et  magistra  dudum  tanquam  hereticam  condempnavit  et  eam  tanquam  vere  ta- 
lem  persequitur  et  condempnat,  p.  207.  So,  too,  the  complaints  of  the  sufferers  use  the  same 
word.  The  Waldensians  are  represented  as  asserting  rashly  (temerarie  asserunt,)  "  that  the  sa- 
cred Roman  church  sins  and  deals  with  them  unlawfully  and  unjustly,  because  it  persecutes  and 
condemns  them" — {quia  ipsos  persequitur  et  condempnat,)  p.  207.  Another,  John  Chauoat,  of 
the  same  hapless  sect,  is  charged,  amongst  his  other  misdemeanors,  with  saying  and  asserting  {dicis 
et  asseris,)  "  that  those  who  persecute  these  same  {Waldensians,)  to  wit,  the  prelates  of  the  Ro- 
man church  and  the  inquisitors  of  heretical  pravity,  act  unjustly,  and  in  unrighteously  apprehend- 
ing and  detaining  them,  and  in  giving  up  to  the  secular  arm  those  who  will  not  desert  that  sect,"  p. 
263.  We  have  seen,  and  the  martyrs  of  the  valleys  felt,  what  the  inquisitors  call  their  "  canonical 
sanctions,"  which,  amongst  other  things,  required  the  use  of  a  heartless  form  of  mercy,  while  giving 
up  the  victim  to  merciless  tortures  and  death.  We  need  not  be  surprised  to  find,  though  the  in- 
quisitors seem  to  regard  it  as  unaccountable  temerity,  that  these  "  canonicas  sancciones,"  "  the 
aforesaid  sect,  wandering  from  the  right  path,  neither  receives  nor  regards  as  of  any  worth,  but 
spurns,  rejects  and  contemns" — (spernit,  rejicit  et  contempnit,)  pp.  263  and  207.  Familiar  as 
were  those  blessed  confessors  with  the  Bible,  they  probably  recollected,  in  connexion  with  at  least 
this  portion  of  the  venerable  "  canonical  sanctions,"  the  language  of  the  Psalmist,  an  earlier  suf- 
ferer :  "  His  words  were  softer  than  oil,  yet  were  they  drawn  swords." — (Ps.  lv.  21.) 

If  the  Episcopal  oath  is,  then,  to  be  construed  by  the  analogy  of  other  ancient  usage  of  the  word 
on  the  part  of  the  same  church,  we  can  be  at  no  loss  as  to  its  signification.  The  word  "  persecu- 
tion" is  become,  through  the  growth  of  Protestant  influence,  an  odious  word.  Many  excellent  Ca- 
tholics, as  individuals,  repudiate  the  thing  itself.  But,  as  Bishop  Hopkins,  of  Vermont,  has  shown 
in  his  9th  lecture  on  the  Reformation,  the  Roman  church  has  authoritatively  established  persecu- 
tion as  her  duty.  Individuals  have  no  right  to  create  or  decide  the  doctrine  of  the  church.  She 
claims  infallibility  and  immutability  ;  and,  although  from  the  force  of  public  opinion  and  the  stress 


11  "The  Pope  is  present.  He  is  seated  on  a  throne  or  chair  of  state  ;  the  cardinals,  in  succession, 
approach  and  kiss  his  hand,  retire  one  step,  and  make  three  bows  or  nods  :  one  to  him  in  front,  and 
one  on  the  right  hand,  and  another  on  the  left ;  which,  I  am  told,  are  intended  for  him,  (as  the  per- 
sonification of  the  Father,)  and  for  the  Son,  and  for  the  Holy  Ghost,  on  either  side  of  him  ;  and  all 
the  cardinals  having  gone  through  these  motions,  and  the  inferior  priests  having  kissed  his  toe — 
that  is,  the  cross  embroidered  on  hi*  shoe — high  mass  begins." — Rome  in  the  Nineteenth  Century 
Harper's  Edition,  vol.  ii.  pages  246,  247. 


30 

But  by  this  title,  we  mean  the  cross  naked,  rugged,  and  desolate,  not 
pictured,  save  on  the  e}re  of  faith,  and  upon  the  pages  of  scripture, — not 
graven  but  by  the  finger  of  the  spirit  on  the  regenerate  heait; — the  cross  as 
Paul  preached  it,  and  the  first  Christians  received  it.  This  doctrine,  we 
suppose  to  have  two  aspects.     The  first,  Christ  crucified,  as  becoming  our 


of  circumstance?,  she  may  allow  certain  doctrines  and  claims  to  remain  in  abeyance,  they  wait  but 
the  fitting  season  to  revive  and  reclaim  their  old  influence.  And  what  the  supreme  Pontiff,  him- 
self, judges  of  sucb  individual  and  modern  modifications  of  the  old  doctrines  we  may  augur  from 
that  Encyclical  letter  issued  by  the  reigning  Pontiff  of  our  own  times,  Gregory  XVI,  in  the  year 
1832.  {La  Hernials.  Affaires  de  Rome.  Bruzellcs,  1837.  pp.  352-393)  Writing  as  under  the  pa- 
tronage of  the  Virgin  Mary,  whose  aid  he  invokes  to  guide  his  mind,  (celesli  afflatu  suo,)  by  her 
heavenly  inspiration,  into  salutary  counsels,  (p.  356,)  he  reminds  the  bishops  and  dignitaries  he  ad- 
dresses, in  the  language  of  his  canonized  predecessors  in  the  Pontificate,  that  every  novelty,  what- 
soever, shakes  the  entire  church,  and  that  nothing  once  regularly  established  (by  the  church)  ad- 
mits of  being  in  aught  diminished,  in  aught  altered,  in  aught  increased,  but  is  to  be  preserved  un- 
impaired in  terms  and  in  signification,'" — pp.  362-364.  Rejecting,  therefore,  indignantly,  the 
proposed  restoration  and  regeneration  suggested  by  some,  as  necessary  to  the  well-being  of  the 
church,  Cp.  368.)  he  denounces,  as  M  an  absurd  and  erroneous  sentiment,  or  rather  the  raving  of  de- 
lirium, the  opinion  tliat,  for  every  one,  whatever,  is  to  be  claimed  and  defended,  the  liberty  of 
conscience,"  p.  376;  "  to  which  most  pestilent  error,  (pestilentissimo  errori.)''  he  goes  on  to  remark. 
'•  the  way  has  been  prepared  by  that  full  and  unbounded  liberty  of  opinion  which  prevails  widely, 
to  the  injury  of  the  church  and  the  commonwealth  ;  some  with  extreme  impudence  pronouncing  that 
from  it  are  to  flow  advantages  to  religion,"  p.  376.  Reading  history  by  lights  of  his  own,  he  pro- 
ceeds to  declare  that  "  experience  has  shown,  from  the  earliest  antiquity,  that  States,  the  most 
eminent  in  wealth,  power  and  glory,  have  fallen  by  this  one  evil,  the  ungoverned  freedom  of 
opinion,  license  of  discourse  and  the  love  of innovation,'7  p.  376.  "  To  the  same  class,"  he  proceeds, 
"  is  to  be  referred  that  worst  and  never  enough  to  be  execrated,  and  detestable  (deterrima  ac 
nunquam  satis  ezsecranda  et  detestabilis,)  liberty  of  the  press,"  (libertas  artis  libraries.) — 
p.  378.  We  must  close  our  quotations  ;  but  such  language  proves  distinctly  that  the  principles  of 
toleration  and  freedom  that,  in  our  country,  have  made  persecution  for  religion  unpopular,  are 
not  yet  the  principles  of  the  Romish  See.  Individuals  may  disavow  aud  repudiate  the  use  of  force 
to  compel  religious  uniformity  :  but  with  such  declarations  before  us.  from  the  head  of  the  Romish 
church,  the  very  "  Seat  of  Verity  aud  Unity,"  as  the  Romanists  term  it,  it  requires  great  heedless- 
ness, or  singular  credulity,  to  suppose  that  Rome  has  changed  her  principles,  however  she  may 
varv  her  policy  or  modify  her  tactics  to  the  emergencies  of  the  time  and  the  scene. 

That  Rome  has  not  repented  of  the  blood  she  shed  in  former  centuries,  for  the  suppression  of 
heresy,  the  same  document  sufficiently  attests,  where,  in  the  face  of  all  history,  and  in  spite  of  ad- 
missions as  to  their  moral  excellence,  made  by  such  high  Catholic  authority  as  Bossuet.  the  reign- 
ing Pontiff  goes  on  to  speak  of  the  "  Tf'aldensians.  and  other  sons  of  Belial  of  the  same  class,,f 
(aliorumque  hujusmodi  fliorum  Belial,)  as  being  "  the  filth  and  shame  of  the  human  race"  (qui  hu- 
mani  generis  sordes  ac  dedecora  fuere.)  aud  "  therefore  deservedly  so  often  smitten  by  the  anathe- 
ma of  the  Seat  of  the  Apostles. " — p.  388.  It  is  not  for  any  man  to  use  such  language  of  such  con- 
fessors of  Christ,  and  especially  for  one  holding  the  seat  once  held  by  Alexander  VI,  to  talk  so  un- 
reservedly of"  the  filth  of  the  human  race." 

He  might  well  remember  that  the  connexion  of  his  own  Pontifical  line  with  the  Borgias  of  the 
one  sex  and  the  Marozias  of  the  other,  is  a  fact  much  later  and  surer,  as  to  the  evidence  establish- 
ing it,  and  the  influence  emanating  from  it — both  much  nearer  and  much  clearer,  than  the  Apocry- 
phal claim  that  line  has  set  up  of  apostolical  descent  and  authority.  To  an  American  Christian 
it  affords  but  little  evidence  of  the  possession  of  an  "  apostolical  seat,"  or  the  inheritance  of  an 
apostolical  spirit,  to  have  launched  such  butchery  of  old,  and  to  scatter  such  Billingsgate  now,  upon 

"  O,  Lord,  thy  slaughtered  saints,  whose  bones 
Lie  scattered  on  the  Alpine  mountains,  cold  ; 
E'en  them  who  kept  thy  truth  so  pure  of  old. 

Who  were  thy  sheep,  and  in  their  ancient  fold 
Slain  by  the  bloody  Piedmontese,  that  rolled 
Mother  with  infant  down  the  rocks." 

Milton. 


31 

free  and  full  justification  by  a  blood  that  purges  from  all  sin,  and  avails  for 
the  world.  It  was  the  reassertion  of  this  doctrine  which  wrought  the  glo- 
rious reformation.  The  second,  Christ  crucified,  as  the  principle  of  our 
sanctifi-cation,  under  the  influences  of  the  renewing  spirit,  that  conforms  the 
believer  to  his  Lord,  and  crucifies  his  evil  nature  within  him.  Thus  it  was 
that  Christ  was  not  only  crucified  himself,  but  required  also  every  disciple 
to  come  after  him,  taking  up  also  his  own  cross,  and  Paul  speaks  of  himself 
as  crucified  unto  the  world.  This  last  aspect  of  the  doctrine  of  the  cross, 
we  have  thought,  has  been  rather  overlooked  by  some  of  trie  reformers,  in 
their  zeal  against  self-righteousness,  and  against  a  false  and  ascetic  piety. 
Such  was  Cecil's  opinion,12  whom  none  can  suspect  of  any  want  of  reve- 
rent feeling  for  the  reformers.  But  if  we  look  to  the  New  Testament,  it  is 
very  evident  that  &£>:/&  were  blended  in  the  doctrine  as  the  early  Christians 
received  it.  The  cross  was  not  only  their  confidence,  but  the  model  of  their 
conformity.  It  is,  we  have  supposed,  a  defect  here. — a  neglect  of  aiming 
at  this  high  standard  of  devoted  ness.  on  the  part  of  many  of  us  Protestants, 
that  has  given  to  the  Oxford  Tractarian  movement,  and  to  the  present  ef- 
forts of  Romanism,  most  of  their  hold  upon  the  public  mind.  Apparent 
estrangement  from  the  world,  and  a  self-denial  that  rises  superior  to  the  or- 
dinary* idols  of  society,  will  commend  to  the  respect  of  mankind  even  much 
error  in  those  thus  estranged  and  self-denying.  It  throws  a  glistering  veil  of 
sanctity  even  over  the  gross  corruptions  of  Romanism;  and  her  impostures 
and  enormities  are  often  overlooked  by  those  who  see  standing  in  her  shrines 
her  martyrs  of  charity,  her  Vincent  de  Pauls,  and  her  Francis  Xaviers. 
A  pining  recluse,  scourging  himself  in  sober  sadness,  as  the  expression  of  his 
deep  sense  of  sin,  may  be  a  pitiable  spectacle  of  delusion;  but  he  is  not  in 
the  eyes  of  the  world  generally,  as  odious  a  sight  as  that  presented  bv  a 
self-satisfied,  self-indulgent  professor  of  a  purer  creed,  riving  in  all  ease  and 
pleasure,  conformed  to  the  world  in  all  its  follies,  and  vaunting  of  a  doc- 
trinal orthodoxy  that  produces  no  eminence  in  holiness.  Christians  must 
live  more  upon  the  cross,  seeing  in  it  not  only  the  principle  of  their  faith, 
but  also  the  pattern  of  their  obedience, — the  cross  not  only  as  cancelling 
their  sin,  but  also  as  crucifying  their  lusts.  Such  is  the  two-fold  aspect  of 
the  great  truth,  the  basis  of  all  scriptural  doctrine  and  practice,  the  centre 
of  all  its  mysteries  and  all  its  morality- — the  cross  of  Christ. 

Let  us  now,   for  a  moment,  turn  to  the  history  of  that  Cross,  in  order 
that  we  may  perceive  more  clearly  its  strange  elements  of  power.     Place 


12  -'Man  is  a  creature  of  extremes.  *  *  *  *  Popish  heresy  of  human  merit  in  Justification, 
drove  Luther  on  the  other  side  into  most  unwarrantable  and  unscnptural  statements  of  that  doc- 
trine."— Cecils  TTo'ks.  X.  I.  Iri5.    Vol.  iii.  p.  419. 

"The  leading  defect  in  Christian  ministers  is  want  of  a  devotional  haeit.  The  Church  of 
Rome  made  much  of  this  habit.  The  contests  accompanying  and  following  the  Reformation,  with 
something'  of  an  indiscriminate  enmity  against  some  of  the  good  of  that  Church,  as  well  as  the 
evil,  combined  to  repress  this  spirit  in  the  Protestant  writings  :  whereas  the  mind  of  Christ  seems 
in  fact,  to  be  the  grand  end  of  Christianity  in  its  operation  upon  man.'' — Ibid.  p.  30S. 

••  A  want  of  the  spirit  of  the  cross  in  its  professors  increases  the  offence  of  the  cross — that  hu- 
mility, patience  and  love  to  souls,  which  animated  Christ  when  he  offered  himself  on  the  cross  for 
th6  sun  of  the  world."— Ibid,  p.  351. 


32 

yourselves  then,  in  imagination,  amid  the  multitude,  that  swayed  by  curi- 
osity, or  inflamed  by  hate,  are  rushing  from  the  hall  of  judgment,  and 
sweeping  along  their  hurried  and  tumultuous  way  to  the  hill  of  crucifixion. 
Reeling  under  insults,  a  meek  sufferer,  whose  head  is  bound  with  a  crown 
of  thorns,  and  his  face  swollen  with  blows  and  wet  with  the  spewings  of 
the  mob,  is  threading,  slowly  and  painfully,  his  way  through  that  exas- 
perated crowd,  all  athirst  and  ravening  for  his  blood.  He  has  reached  the 
spot  selected  for  his  death.  There  he  stands  faint,  but  mute  and  uncom- 
plaining, whilst  the  cruel  preparations  are  made  that  shall  consummate  the 
sacrifice.  Amid  shouts,  and  taunts,  and  fiercest  blasphemy,  he  is  nailed 
and  lifted  up.  As  the  cross  becomes  erect,  and  he  hangs  at  last  before  that 
excited  multitude,  methinks  I  see  exultation,  like  a  rising  breeze, 
ruffle  that  sea  of  upturned  faces.  And  there  he  is  lifted,  how  utterly 
friendless  and  abject  to  the  eye  of  man  ;  for  even  the  thieves  upbraid  him, 
that  hang  and  writhe  besides  him. 

But  were  your  eyes  unsealed,  as  the  prophet  opened  chose  of  his  servant 
at  Doth  an,  you  would  discern,  besides  and  above  that  howling  rabble,  a 
more  august  gathering.  Legions,  whose  feeblest  warrior  would  have  turned 
to  paleness  the  cheek  of  Caesar  at  the  head  of  all  his  hosts,  are  gazing 
there;  yet  withheld  by  some  dread  sentence,  they  do  not  interpose.  Angels 
that  excel  in  might  and  in  glory,  watch  that  desolate  sufferer  with  adoring 
interest.  That  much  outraged  victim,  seemingly  rejected  of  man  and 
abandoned  of  God,  is  my  Maker.  In  that  lowly  form  is  veiled  the  incar- 
nate Godhead.  The  angels  that  smote  Sennacherib's  camp,  and  slew  the 
first-born  of  Egypt,  have  bowed  often  their  heads  to  this  being,  as  their 
Lord  and  their  Creator.  Excited  as  are  his  enemies,  they  could  frame  no 
consistent  accusation  against  him  to  justify  their  enmity.  There,  under 
reproach,  anguish  and  cursing,  dies  the  only  one  of  Adam's  race  that  knew 
no  sin.  For  no  guilt  of  his  own  is  he  suffering,  but  to  cancel  that  of  his 
murderer,  man.  Thus  viewed,  what  elements  of  grandeur  and  tender- 
ness, of  the  loftiest  splendor  and  the  lowliest  condescension,  blend  in  that 
dread  sacrifice.  Do  men  look  with  interest  on  greatness  in  misery  ?  It  is 
here.  The  King  of  glory  dying  as  a  malefactor.  Are  they  touched  with  sym- 
pathy for  distress  ?  How  deep  was  the  anguish  even  of  his  patient  spirit, 
when  he  cried  out,  invoking  a  Father  who  had  hidden  his  face.  Should 
wisdom  attract,  here  was  the  great  Teacher  whom  all  Judea  had  admired, 
speaking  as  never  man  spake, — the  heavenly  Teacher  for  whom  Socrates 
had  taught  himself  and  his  scholars  to  hope.  He  is  here  giving  his 
lessons  on  the  cross.  The  good  man  dying  ignominiously,  of  whom  Plato 
had  glimpses,  is  here,  the  exemplar  of  perfect  innocence,  enduring  the  treat- 
ment due  to  consummate  wickedness.  That  sacrifice  stirs  all  worlds. 
Hell  misses  its  expected  prey,  and  the  spell  of  despair  over  the  accursed 
earth  is  broken.  That  sacrifice  may  well  have  power  with  man,  for  it  has 
power  with  God.  To  the  human  mind,  it  presents  in  the  closest  union  and 
in  their  highest  energy,  all  the  elements  of  sympathy,  awe  and  tenderness. 
It  blends  a  Divine  majesty  that  might  well  overawe  the  haughtiest,  with 
a  winning  gentleness  that  would  re-assure  the  most  desponding.     It   may 


33 

well  be,  at  the  same  time,  a  theme  for  the  mind  of  an  angel  to  study, 
without  grasping  all  its  vastness,  and  a  motive  for  the  mind  of  the  Sabbath- 
school  child  to  feel,  without  being  repelled  by  its  loftiness.  It  has  power, 
practical  power — popular  power — permanent  power.  It  is  God's  remedy 
for  sin ;  and  with  the  accompanying  influences  of  his  Spirit,  it  can  avail  as 
the  remedy  for  all  forms  of  man's  sin,  as  that  sin  is  infused  into,  and  as  it  is 
found  envenoming  either  the  literature  of  the  world,  or  any  other  product 
of  the  human  mind.  Let  us  but  transcribe  that  truth  into  the  heart,  and 
illustrate  it  in  the  life,  or  rather  let  the  renewing  grace  of  God's  spirit  so 
transfer  it  into  the  soul  of  man,  let  me  be  enabled  to  believe  in  this  Divine 
Sufferer,  as  my  Saviour — to  feel  that  with  him  I  am  dying  to  the  world, 
and  that  with  him  too,  I  shall  rise  again  from  the  grave,  see  him  on  the 
judgment  throne,  and  follow  him  into  the  gates  of  Paradise  :  and  with 
these  truths  firmly  grasped  by  the  mind,  what  has  the  world  left  where- 
with to  allure,  wherewith  to  appal  me  ?  I  have  thrown  myself  loose  from 
the  trammels  of  earth.  Its  cords  have  perished  at  the  touch  of  an  ethereal 
fire.  Disengaged  from  its  entanglements,  its  bonds  sundered,  and  its  snares 
parted,  I  soar  aloft,  to  sit,  in  the  language  of  Paul,  in  heavenly  places  in 
Christ  Jesus.  I  rise  yet  higher,  and  in  the  awful  language  of  Peter,  I, 
the  heir  of  corruption,  and  once  the  bondsman  of  death,  am  made  "  a  par- 
taker of  the  divine  nature."     Here  is  power. 

Let  that  power  of  the  Cross  but  go  forth  in  its  appropriate  channels, 
in  a  holy,  devoted  ministry — in  the  more  elevated  piety  of  the  Church, 
and  in  a  christian  education  of  the  young,  given  by  the  church,  if  the 
State  will  not  give  it : — let  that  power,  we  say,  but  go  forth  in  these  chan- 
nels, and  with  God's  blessing  upon  it,  the  world  is  saved.  Carry  that 
truth  into  all  the  scenes  of  human  activity,  or  suffering — into  the  market- 
place, and  the  halls  of  legislation;  into  the  schools  of  philosophy,  and  the 
student's  cell,  and  the  editor's  desk,  the  cabins  of  poverty  and  the  dun- 
geons of  crime,  let  it  fence  the  cradle  and  watch  the  death-bed ;  and  it  will 
be  found  equal  to  every  task,  competent  to  every  emergency,  and  mighty  to 
exorcise  every  evil  spirit.  The  earthly  miracles  of  our  Lord,  were  in 
some  sense  but  anticipations  and  earnests  of  the  moral  miracles  which  that 
doctrine  of  the  cross  has  wrought,  is  now  working,  and  will  continue  to 
work.  Yet, — yet,  does  this  Saviour  open  the  blinded  eyes  of  passion,  and 
breathe  strength  wherewith  to  obey  him  into  the  palsied  will  of  the  sinner. 

1.  And  first  let  us  test  the  energy  of  the  cross,  in  its  application  to  the 
mechanical  and  utilitarian  spirit  of  the  age.  It  meets  all  the  just  wants 
of  that  spirit.  Utilitarians  demand  the  practical,  and  this  is  a  doctrine  emi- 
nently practical.  Let  us  but  observe  this  trait  in  Christ's  own  history.  He 
might  have  theorized  brilliantly  and  perhaps  safely  to  himself.  He  might 
have  been  the  Plato  or  the  Homer  of  his  age,  a  Plato  far  more  profound, 
a  Homer  far  more  sublime  than  the  old  Grecians.  But  he  threw  aside  all 
such  fame.  He  furnished  the  substance  and  subject  of  the  most  glorious 
literature  the  world  has  seen,  but  he  left  it  for  others  to  write  that  literature 
His  business  was  doing  good.  He  was  a  practical  teacher,  and  a  practical 
philanthropist.     And  as  to  the  actual  working,  and  the  every-day  results 

5 


34 

of  the  doctrine  since  the  Saviour's  times,  it  is  seen  how  Commerce  confesses 
that  her  way  has  been  often  prepared  and  protected  by  the  missionaries  of 
this  cross ;  and  how  the  statesman  bears  witness  that  his  government 
lias  owed  the  stability,  order  and  virtue  of  the  community  to  the  preaching  of 
this  cross ;  and  how  the  scholar  attests  that  science  has  flourished  best 
under  the  peaceful  and  sober  influence  of  this  religion  of  the  cross.  The 
gospel  is  eminently  practical,  then,  and  so  far,  it  conciliates  the  spirit  of 
utilitarianism. 

But  the  doctrine  of  the  cross  is  not  sordid  and  selfish,  and,  so  far,  it  cor- 
rects the  mechanical,  utilitarian  tendency  of  our  times.  Against  the  lust 
of  gain,  it  sets,  in  strong  contrast,  the  example  of  Christ's  voluntary  pov- 
erty, and  in  solemn  warning,  the  Saviour's  declaration,  how  hardly  the 
rich  man  enters  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  Against  the  disposition  which 
would  set  material  interests  above  all  others,  and  teach  us  to  regard  the 
tangible  goods  of  earth  as  the  only  real  or  the  only  valuable  possessions, 
the  gospel  shows  Christ  setting  moral  far  above  all  material  interests — and 
uttering  the  brief  and  pithy  question,  before  which  avarice  turns  pale,  and 
ambition  drops  his  unfinished  task :  "  What  shall  it  profit  a  man  if  he  gain 
the  whole  world  and  lose  his  own  soul,  or  what  shall  a  man  give  in  ex- 
change for  his  soul  ?"  If,  as  the  great  English  moralist  said,  that  which 
exalts  the  future,  and  disengages  man's  mind  from  being  engrossed  by  the 
present,  serves  to  elevate  man  to  the  true  dignity  of  his  nature ;  how  great 
the  practical  value  of  a  faith,  in  whose  far-reaching  visions,  time  dwindles 
into  a  speck,  and  eternity  becomes  the  paramount  object  of  man's  anxieties 
and  hopes,  where  Truth  is  made  more  valuable  than  all  things,  to 
be  bought  at  all  risks,  while  Truth  is  not  to  be  sold  for  the  world.— 
And  the  prevalent  selfishness  which  lies  at  the  basis  of  that  me- 
chanical and  utilitarian  spirit  of  which  we  have  spoken,  is  sorely  re- 
buked by  the  very  thought  of  a  Divine  Redeemer,  who,  moved  by  no  sel- 
fish aims,  but  in  disinterested  kindness,  compassionately  visits,  and  by  the 
sacrifice  of  himself  ransoms  his  envenomed  foes  ;  and  whose  gospel  makes 
all  mankind  my  brethren  in  a  common  sin,  doom,  and  ransom ;  and  bids 
me  freely  give  to  my  fellow  man  what  I  have  most  freely  received. 

Imbue,  then,  your  literature  with  that  spirit,  and  men  learn  that  they  are 
not  mere  calculating,  money-getting  machines,  that  they  have  an  immortal 
soul  within  them  ; — and  that  the  earth  which  they  till  and  parcel  out,  and 
conquer  and  govern,  is  but  the  lodge  of  their  few  way-faring  years,  as  they 
are  journeying  to  their  home  in  the  far  eternity.  Then  the  miser,  as  that 
world,  revealed  by  the  cross,  heaves  into  view,  unclutches  his  gold.  Then 
the  manoeuvres  and  tactics,  the  trickery  and  juggling  of  parties  in  the 
church  and  the  state,  show  in  their  native  meanness,  beside  the  simple, 
sublime  and  unselfish  scheme  of  the  Redeemer.  The  views  of  eternity, 
gained  at  the  foot  of  that  cross,  open  a  wider  horizon  to  the  noblest  flights 
of  science.  The  views  of  duty  there  learned,  give  a  higher  finish  to  all 
the  details  of  industry  and  art.  Give  literature  thoroughly  to  feel  and 
diffuse  this  doctrine  of  the  cross,  and  while,  on  the  one  hand,  it  is  saved 
from   fruitless  speculations,  and  made  eminently  practical ;  it  is  on  the 


35 

other  hand,  effectually  snatched  from  under  the  wheels  of  a  mechanical 
age,  and  saved  from  being  trodden  into  the  mire  beneath  the  hoofs  of  a 
sordid  selfishness.  Thus  the  human  mind,  in  its  pursuit  of  letters,  is 
made  practical,  but  not  mechanical ;  and  while  taught  to  aim  at  the  widest 
usefulness,  is  raised  above  a  grovelling  utilitarianism,  that  measures  all 
good  by  selfish  advantages,  and  the  standard  of  present  expediency. 

2.  Bring  again,  this  doctrine  to  the  trial,  in  its  power  over  passion.  We 
have  remarked  its  effects  on  the  tyranny  of  Mammon ;  let  us  try  its  ener- 
gies on  the  prowling  spirit  of  Belial.  In  the  death  of  the  Mediator  and 
Victim,  it  has  provided  for  the  free  forgiveness  of  the  most  aggravated 
sins.  To  those  who  have  become  the  slaves  of  their  unbridled  passions, 
it  holds  out  therefore  the  prospect  of  recovery,  and  the  promise  of  a  pardon, 
full  and  immediate.  It  cheers  those  who  had  learned  to  despair  of  their 
own  moral  renovation.  It  announces  hope  for  the  world's  outcasts.  Those 
whom  human  society  had  shut  out  as  irrecoverable,  it  pursues  and  reclaims. 
In  circumstances  the  most  discouraging,  and  characters  the  most  hopeless, 
it  delights  to  work  its  miracles  of  mercy.  It  rears  the  flowers  and  fruits 
of  virtue  on  the  scarce  cooled  crust  of  the  flowing  lava  of  passion,  that  but 
lately  had  poured  forth  its  devastating  floods  over  every  green  thing.  But 
while  thus  welcoming  the  vilest,  it  makes  no  peace  with  their  evil  passions. 
It  exorcises  the  fiercer,  to  foster  the  gentler  of  these  impulses  and  affec- 
tions of  man's  heart.  Of  this  religion,  the  Lamb  and  the  Dove  are  the 
chosen  emblems,  meekness  and  kindness  the  instruments  of  its  triumphs, 
and  its  law  the  law  of  love. 

Hence  its  signal  power  to  humanize  and  civilize  when  introduced  into 
those  portions  of  society  where  it  had  before  been  unknown.  See  how  it 
has  tamed  the  rude,  uplifted  the  degraded,  and  cleansed  the  polluted,  and 
righted  the  oppressed  in  the  islands  and  upon  the  continents  to  which  the 
missionary  has  carried  it.  It  has,  indeed,  much  yet  to  accomplish  even  in 
the  bounds  of  the  Christian  church.  Bring  it  to  bear  more  fully  upon  the 
habits  and  feelings  of  the  church,  and  it  will  destroy  there  the  supremacy 
of  mere  emotion  and  excitement,  operating  as  they  sometimes  do  to  pro- 
duce a  false  fire  not  from  Heaven.  It  substitutes  principle  as  the  guide  of 
life  instead  of  that  treacherous  and  changeful  sympathy  which  is  often  made 
the  rule  of  our  way.  It  summons  the  disciple,  in  view  of  his  Master's 
journey  and  end,  to  lead  no  random  life,  the  mere  sport  of  caprice  and  im- 
pulse. It  rebukes  those  Christians  who  may  be  described  as  living  by 
jerks,  and  whose  fitful  activity  has  all  the  contortions  of  the  adventitious 
life  of  galvanism.  When  allowed  its  full  scope  over  the  inner  world  of 
the  heart,  see  its  power  to  produce  high  and  symmetrical  excellence  in 
Leighton  and  Doddridge  and  Baxter  and  Pearce,  and  why  should  we  hesi- 
tate to  add,  in  the  heavenly  minded  St.  Cyran  and  Fenelon  ?  See  the  men 
whom  it  has  thoroughly  possessed,  in  whom  it  operated  pervading  all 
their  passions,  and  making  them  to  become  like  Brainerd  or  Martyn  or 
Xavier,  "  living  burnt  sacrifices"  on  the  altar  of  God.  We  see  no  lack 
of  noble  feelings  and  high  emotion  there.  It  is  no  painted  flame  that 
shines  there ;  much  less  are  they  the  lurid  fires  of  a  malignant,  persecuting 


36 

zeal.  The  victim  i9  consumed  in  the  flames  of  a  heaven  descended  char- 
ity, a  holocaust  to  God,  while  all  around  is  made  radiant  with  the  golden 
and  lambent  lustre  of  his  love. 

For  the  doctrine  of  the  cross  is  far  from  extirpating  passion.  It  but  reg- 
ulates it.  No  doctrine  like  it  awakens  and  sustains  the  holier  passions. 
All  is  purified  and  subordinated  to  the  love  of  God,  and  man  returns  thus 
to  the  likeness  of  his  unfallen  self — to  bear  again  some  traces  of  his  original 
character  ere  sin  had  marred  his  nature,  or  sorrow  darkened  his  path ;  and 
when  all  his  powers  and  passions  ministered  to  virtue  and  contributed  to  his 
happiness. 

Let  literature  then  become  but  the  handmaid  of  this  doctrine  of  the 
cross,  and  it  can  no  longer  pander,  as  it  has  too  long  done,  to  the  fiercer  or 
baser  appetites  of  mankind.  How  much  has  the  cultivated  talent  of  the 
race,  in  its  various  literary  tasks,  set  itself  to  divide  and  destroy,  to  corrupt 
and  intoxicate  mankind.  Genius  has  shouted  to  swell  the  discord,  and  its 
cry  has  exasperated  the  strifes,  of  the  world,  instead  of  being  their  peace- 
maker. How  often  has  the  scholar  yoked  himself  to  the  brazen  car  of  Mo- 
loch, or  served  to  heighten  the  idolatrous  revel  in  the  groves  of  the  wanton 
Ashtoreth.  How  much  of  literary  achievement  has  perished  in  conse- 
quence of  the  corruption  that  so  deeply  engrained  it,  or  has  continued  and 
lived  only  to  spread  around  moral  infection.  Looking  back  over  the  history 
of  our  world,  as  preserved  by  those  who  knew  not,  or  obeyed  not  this  gospel, 
it  is  a  humiliating  record.  The  tumult  and  rage  of  passion  seem  endless. 
One  wide  and  restless  sea  overspreads  the  scene.  But  when  the  gospel 
moves  over  this  waste,  dovelike  in  spirit,  it  comes  like  the  dove  to  the  ark 
of  our  diluvian  father,  bearing  the  message  of  peace  and  the  omen  of  hope 
— the  leaf  that  betokens  the  assuaging  of  the  waters,  the  cessation  of  the 
storm,  and  the  re-appearance  of  earth,  from  its  long  baptism  of  death,  all 
radiant  in  new-born  verdure  and  beauty. 

No  skill  in  negociation  or  prowess  in  war  can  avail  like  this  gospel  to 
establish  peace  among  the  nations.  No  police,  however  well-appointed 
and  vigilant,  has  equal  power  to  give  order  and  security  to  the  nation  or  the 
city  within  itself.  No  principle  or  art,  no  degree  of  refinement  and  no 
measure  of  knowledge  can  succeed  like  the  religion  of  the  cross  in  giving 
true  peace  to  the  household.  To  destroy  in  all  these  relations  of  soci- 
ety, the  tyranny  of  the  vindictive  passions,  no  power  is  like  that  of  the 
gospel.  Its  efficacy  to  raise  and  restore  the  slaves  of  the  baser  appetites  of 
our  nature,  we  have  already  seen.  A  literature  then  controlled  by  this 
gospel,  will  not  be  the  literature  of  mere  blind  passion.  And  no  principle 
is  so  likely  to  eject  from  our  literature  this  passion,  as  the  great  truth  of 
Christ  crucified,  iterated  and  reiterated  in  the  ears  of  our  people. 

3.  Apply  it  again,  as  a  conservative  principle,  to  counteract  the  lawless- 
ness of  our  times.  If  ever  it  appeared  as  if  there  might  be  a  just  revolt 
against  the  will  of  Providence,  it  seemed  to  be  at  the  time  when  the  meek 
Saviour,  innocent,  lowly  and  loving,  was  sold  by  the  traitor,  deserted  of  his 
disciples,  assailed  by  the  false  accuser,  and  condemned  by  the  unjust  judge. 
But  though  the  cup  was  bitter,  it  was  meekly  drunk,  for  it  had  been  the 


27 

Father's  will  to  mingle  it,  and  his  was  the  hand  that  held  to  the  lips  of  the 
Son  the  deadly  draught.  Lawlessness  is  hushed  at  the  sight  of  Gethsem- 
ane.  In  the  garden  and  at  the  cross  you  see  illustrated  the  sanctity  of  law 
as  it  appears  no  where  else.  It  was  Mercy  indeed  that  was  forcing  her 
way  to  the  sinner  ;  but  as  she  went,  she  was  seen  doing  homage  to  Justice, 
and  paying  the  debt,  ere  she  freed  the  captive.  That  dread  transaction 
proclaimed  the  truth  that  transgression  could  never  in  God's  universe  occur 
with  impunity  ;  and  that  if  one  did  not  suffer,  another  must.  Tenderness 
was  there  lavished,  such  as  the  heart  of  man  never  conceived  in  its  hour  of 
most  impassioned  and  concentrated  affection.  Yet  that  tenderness  leaned 
on  the  sternest  principle.  The  Father  loved  the  Son  thus  sacrificed  as  his 
well-beloved  one ;  yet  it  "pleased  the  Father  to  bruise  Him."  Surely  here 
is  found  no  precedent  for  the  lawless  tenderness  that  exonerates  the  crimi- 
nal and  blames  the  law.  It  is  not  at  the  cross  of  Christ  that  ministry  has 
learned  its  lessons,  which  employs  itself  in  weaving  silken  scabbards,  in  the 
vain  hope  to  sheath  the  lightnings  of  God's  law;  or  which  is  full  of  dainty 
contrivances  to  muffle  "  the  live,  leaping  thunders"  of  Sinai,  and  make  them 
no  longer  a  terror  to  the  evil-doer.  In  the  last  scenes  of  the  Saviour's  life 
that  law  was  not  contemned,  but  "  magnified  and  made  honorable."  So 
Christ  would  have  it  be  ;  and  a  true  Church  of  Christ  would  say  :  So  let  it 
be.  What  submission  is  here  taught  as  to  the  appointments  of  God — even 
though  he  slay  us.  Where  can  self-denial,  that  rare  and  splendid  grace  of 
the  Christian,  be  so  effectually  acquired  as  in  watching  the  scene  of  his 
Master's  passion,  presented  beneath  the  Olives  of  Gethsemane,  while  the 
sod  beneath  is  wet  with  great  drops  of  bloody  sweat,  and  the  leaves  above 
are  stirred  with  the  sobs  of  that  ascending  prayer:  "not  my  will,  Father, 
but  thine  be  done."  Subjection  to  the  law  of  God  is  one  of  the  best  prepa- 
ratives for  submission  to  all  the  just  laws  of  human  society.  And  send  the 
spirit  of  Christ's  cross  through  a  land,  and  what  a  law-biding  community 
would  it  become.  The  sanctity  of  law  and  right  would  then  hedge  around 
the  property,  character  and  interests  of  each  member  of  society.  It  would 
make  a  latch  sufficient  protection  for  the  vaults  of  a  bank.  Men's  word 
would  be  their  bond.  Our  schools  and  colleges  would  then  be  filled  with 
youth,  docile  and  modest,  who  would  not  begin  their  studies  by  undertaking 
to  teach  their  instructors,  nor  consider  it  their  earliest  duty  to  exercise  a 
paternal  authority  and  supervision  over  the  Faculty  of  the  Institution, 
whose  instructors  they  deign  to  patronize  by  being  there  matriculated.  Our 
sanctuaries  would  present  the  spectacle  of  Christians  united  in  affection, 
bearing  one  another's  burdens,  and  so  fulfilling  the  law  of  love.  Far  as  the 
spirit  of  the  gospel  has  already  influenced  literature  it  has  been  made  a 
literature  friendly  to  public  order,  and  the  ally  of  law,  thinning  where  our 
popular  literature  too  often  serves  but  to  multiply  the  tenants  of  our  jails  ;  and 
teaching  his  disciples  to  render  honor  unto  whom  honor  is  due,  and  fear  to 
whom  fear. 

4.  Look,  next,  at  its  power  to  check  the  false  liberalism  of  the  times,  in  its 
wretched  effects  on  the  moral  integrity  and  purity  of  our  literature.  This 
form  of  evil  has  many  shapes.     All  we  cannot  discuss.     We  would   but 


38 

enumerate  its  strange  speculations  as  to  Scripture  ;  its  false  liberality  as 
to  religious  faith;  its  false  toleration  in  morals;  and  lastly,  its  demon 
pride  setting  itself  up  to  supersede  Jehovah.  All  these  how  sternly  does 
the  cross  of  Christ  rebuke  and  repudiate. 

Trust  some  of  these  liberal  teachers,  and  all  the  old  truths  of  scripture 
vanish.  Instead  of  its  solid  grounds  of  history,  its  significafxt  prophecy, 
and  all  its  varied,  unerring  inspiration ;  they  would  usher  us  into  a  mere 
cloud-land  of  shifting  speculations,  unsubstantial  and  formless  and  evan- 
escent. They  would  disembowel  the  Bible  of  its  facts,  and  leave  behind  a 
few  cold  truths  of  Natural  Religion,  most  awkwardly  told,  the  fragments 
of  a  myth  about  the  development  of  Human  Nature.  But  take  their 
theory  to  the  cross.  Look  up  at  that  sufferer.  Read  his  discourses  ;  follow 
his  miracles  ;  and  believe,  if  you  can,  that  this  is  not  a  history  of  facts. 
The  confession  of  the  infidel  Rosseau  bursts  to  your  lips:  "  If  this  be  a 
fiction,  the  inventor  is  yet  more  wondrous  even  than  the  hero  of  the  narra- 
tive." You  have  the  fullest  circumstantial  details  of  Christ's  life,  the 
country  and  age  in  which  he  lived,  the  cities  he  visited  and  the  persons  he 
met.  Pilate  and  Herod  were  facts.  Jerusalem  was  a  fact.  Gethsemane 
was  a  fact.  Calvary  was  a  fact.  And  he  who  hung  there,  on  the  fatal 
tree  of  anguish  and  shame,  asserted  not  myths,  but  facts — wrought  not 
myths,  but  facts — loved  not  in  myth  but  in  fact;  and  the  salvation  he  has 
offered,  the  Heaven  which  he  has  opened,  and  the  Hell  from  which  he  has 
warned  us — all — all  are  facts.  Wo  to  those,  who  treat  all  as  myths,  until, 
not  mythically  but  really,  they  for  ever  forfeit  the  one,  and  plunge  irrevo- 
cably into  the  other.  To  study  the  narrative  of  the  gospels,  apart  from  the 
prejudices  of  a  preconceived  system,  and  believe  it  a  fiction,  is  impossible. 
Then  were  all  history  a  fable. 

Try  by  the  same  test,  the  spirit  to  which  we  refer,  in  its  false  liberality 
as  to  religious  faith — its  chameleon  character,  finding  true  piety  in  all  creeds 
and  worships,  and  identifying  as  being  but  one  God,  Jehovah  the  God  of 
the  Scriptures,  with  the  Baal  and  the  Moloch  whom  he  cursed,  with  Jug- 
gernaut, whose  worshippers  are  crushed  beneath  chariot  wheels,  and  Ka- 
lee  even,  wearing  her  necklace  of  human  skulls,  and  invoked  by  the  Thug, 
ere  he  strangles  his  victim.  No,  the  Bible  knows  no  such  toleration  and 
liberality  as  this.  It  exclaims,  "  Israel  hath  forgotten  his  Maker,  and 
buildeth  temples."13  A  man  may  be,  as  a  liberalist  would  term  him,  reli- 
gious, and  rear  costly  shrines  from  his  religious  feeling,  and  yet  God  say  of 
him  that  he  had  forgotten  his  Maker,  and  his  religion  was  therefore  value- 
less. The  exclusive  character  of  Truth,  disdaining  all  compromise,  was 
apparent  in  all  Christ's  course.  He  did  not  blend  Sadduceanism,  Pharisa- 
ism, and  Herodianism,  and  Heathenism  into  one  religion;  and  sanction 
all  as  meaning  the  same  thing.  On  the  contrary,  he  denounced  all,  pro- 
voked all,  was  assailed  by  all,  and  at  last  is  seen  dying  by  the  confederated 
malice  and  hate  of  all.  Truth  was  not,  on  his  lips,  a  motley  compound 
of  all  human  opinions,  an  eclecticism  from  all  varieties  of  human  error, 

!3  Hosea  viii.  It 


39 

but  like  its  Divine  Author,  immutable  and  one,  sanctioning  no  compromise 
and  allowing  no  rival. 

Try  these  falsely  liberal  views,  as  to  the  toleration  to  be  shown  in  ques- 
tions of  morals.  Literature  in  our  day  professes  to  cultivate  a  sympathy 
for  all  classes,  even  for  those  who  trade  in  vice,  and  eat  the  bread  of  wick- 
edness. It  has  discovered  that  highwaymen,  prostitutes  and  pickpockets, 
have  their  literary  rights,  and  should  be  fully  represented  in  their  own 
fashion  in  the  great  commonwealth  of  letters.  A  literature  of  felons  is 
accordingly  written,  and  alas,  it  is  also  read,  corrupting  our  language  with 
the  slang  of  cui-throats,  and  our  youth  with  their  immorality.  Was  this, 
now,  the  spirit  of  our  crucified  Lord  ?  He  was  indeed  the  friend  of  sinners. 
He  sate  in  the  publican's  house  as  a  guest ;  he  frowned  not  from  his  feet 
the  weeping  penitent  whose  very  presence  seemed  to  others  to  shed  around 
contamination.  But  although  thus  forgiving  to  the  sinner  when  contrite, 
he  never  dallied  with  sin  itself.  Paul  seems  to  have  found  converts  to  the 
cross  in  the  household  of  the  atrocious  Nero  ;  but  he  never  improves 
the  advantages  thus  afforded  him,  to  draw  revolting  pictures  of  the  excesses 
of  Nero's  drunken  hours ;  nor  has  he  recorded  what,  to  our  modern  novelists, 
would  have  been  invaluable,  the  confessions  he  might  have  heard  from  the 
criminals  who  were  wafted  with  him  over  the  Mediterranean,  in  the  prison 
ship  that  bore  him  to  Rome.  There  were  things  which  Paul  says  he 
thought  it  a  shame  even  to  speak  of.  Well  had  it  been  for  the  purity  of 
our  literature  and  the  innocence  of  our  youth,  had  the  writers  of  our  age 
condescended  to  learn  wisdom  at  the  feet  of  Paul,  the  apostle  of  the  Gen- 
tiles. Peter,  another  of  the  first  preachers  of  the  cross,  speaks  of  sinners 
who  had  "like  the  dog  turned  to  their  own  vomit  again,  and  like  the  sow 
that  was  washed,  to  her  wallowing  in  the  mire."  But  the  apostle  of  the 
circumcision  never  stooped  to  picture  the  loathsome  detail,  and  thus  in  ef- 
fect to  partake  the  banquet  of  the  one,  and  share  the  bath  of  the  other. 
Modern  literature,  aye,  elegant  literature,  amid  all  the  vaunted  refinement 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  has  done  both,  in  order  to  enlarge  our  knowledge 
of  nature  and  life,  and  to  teach  us  superiority  to  the  exclusiveness  of  vul- 
gar prejudices.  With  such  forms  of  liberalism  the  cross  and  its  preachers 
have  no  sympathy. 

The  cross  repudiates  the  demon  pride  of  this  false  liberalism.  In 
Eden,  Satan  but  ventured  to  promise  "  Ye  shall  be  as  Gods,"  hinting  a 
distant  likeness  to  God,  as  the  reward  of  sin.  Modern  Pantheism  has 
renounced  the  qualifying  terms,  laid  aside  all  hesitation,  and  converting 
the  promise  of  future  good  into  an  assertion  of  present  privilege,  it  ex- 
claims audaciously  "Ye  are  God."  Hence  at  the  funeral  a  few  years 
since,  of  a  great  metaphysician  of  Germany,u  one  of  the  leaders  of  this 
philosophy,  it  is  said  that  some  of  his  admirers  spoke  of  him  reverently 
as  a  singular  incarnation  of  God.  But  bring  such  dreams  of  pride  to  the 
atoning  cross.  He  who  hung  there,  tasted  death  for  every  man.  And 
why  ?     We  had  all  sinned.     He  died,  the  just  for  the  unjust,  and  without 

U  Hegel. 


40 

the  shedding  of  blood  there  is  no  remission.  And  there  I  learn  my  desert. 
In  the  fate  of  the  second  Adam  I  read  the  character  of  the  first  Adam, 
whose  place  he  took,  and  whose  doom  he  averted.  I  am  a  doomed  sin- 
ner, by  nature  a  child  of  wrath.  The  taint  of  an  endless  curse  is  on  my 
soul.  The  blood  of  a  divine  atonement  was  necessary  to  purge  me  from 
fatal  blots.  I  must  come  down  into  the  dust  of  lowly  penitence,  or  I  perish. 
His  kingdom  is  for  the  poor  in  spirit.  And  his  most  diligent  followers  are  to 
confess  themselves  but  unprofitable  servants.  Is  it  in  such  scenes,  and 
under  the  eyes  of  such  a  teacher,  I  am  to  claim  equality  and  oneness  with 
God?  No!  such  thoughts,  every  where  absurdly  impious,  are  there  most 
offensively  absurd,  and  most  unpardonably  impious.  And,  as  with  a  battle 
axe,  does  the  cross  of  Christ  cleave  and  annihilate  these  arrogant  fictions 
of  that  liberalism  cherished  by  some  who  yet  call  themselves  Christians. 

Yet  on  the  other  hand,  the  gospel  meets  all  those  just  claims  of  the  soul, 
to  which  this  liberalism  has  addressed  its  flatteries.  The  doctrine  of  the 
cross,  with  a  true  liberality,  allows  all  national  peculiarities  not  in  them- 
selves sinful.  It  welcomes  the  savage  and  the  slave  into  the  brotherhood 
of  the  race,  and  is  prepared  in  the  most  degraded  and  forlorn  of  all  the 
tribes  of  the  earth,  to  eject  the  brute,  acknowledge  the  man,  and  develope 
the  saint.  It  lays  the  basis  of  a  true,  universal,  Catholic  church  ; — not  the 
local,  arrogant,  and  usurping  church  of  Rome,  which  to  make  plausible  its 
poor  claim  to  universality,  must  anathematize  the  myriads  of  the  Greek  and 
Syrian  churches,  and  all  Protestant  Christendom ;  but  that  one  church,  real 
though  invisible,  which  comprises  the  multitudes  no  man  can  number,  and 
no  man  can  name,  the  Christians  of  every  land,  age,  and  sect,  that  hold 
the  head,  and  love  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  in  sincerity.  The  idea  of  unity, 
so  dear  to  the  liberalist,  the  cross  alone  truly  reveals.  It  shows  a  unity 
of  Providence  in  the  whole  history  of  the  world — a  unity  of  piety  in  all 
dispensations  from  those  days  ere  yet  the  ark  was  launched,  to  those  of  a 
new  Heaven  and  a  new  earth,  when  there  shall  be  no  more  sea — a  unity 
of  origin,  in  the  common  descent  of  our  race — a  unity  of  transgression  in 
our  common  sin — a  unity  of  account  in  our  gathering  before  Christ's  bar, 
and  a  unity  of  brotherhood  in  our  one  ransom  paid  at  Christ's  cross. 

Let  but  our  literature  be  saturated  with  this  doctrine  of  the  cross,  and  it 
will  conquer  all  miscalled  liberalism  by  showing  the  source  of  its  errors 
and  meeting  its  just  claims.  It  will  set  up  the  truth,  and  require  the  re- 
nunciation of  every  error.  But  it  will  set  up  the  truth  in  love  ;  and  there 
will  be  ultimately  one  Lord,  and  his  name  One ;  and  He  will  not  be  the 
material  and  sinful  God  of  Pantheism,  but  the  Everlasting  One,  uncreated, 
impassible,  spiritual,  sinless  and  supreme,  distinct  from  the  universe  he 
made  and  governs, — the  Creator,  and  not  the  creature. 

5.  And  lastly,  would  we  say,  the  cross  thus  mighty  to  demolish  libe- 
ralism, has  also  equal  energy  as  the  antagonist  of  superstition,  which  was 
spoken  of  as  the  last  of  the  evil  influences  besetting  our  youthful  literature. 

Instead  of  forms  and  rites,  the  great  resource  of  superstition,  the  gospel 
of  the  cross  requires  a  spiritual  worship,  and  an  inward  conversion.  It  has 
no  regard  for  mere  penances  and  austerities  as  practised  for  their  own  sake, 


41 


or  from  a  belief  in  their  intrinsic  merit.  The  doctrine  of  self-torture,  so 
dear  to  the  saints  of  Romish  legends,  is  unknown  to  the  gospel.  Christ  did 
not  hew  his  own  cross,  nor  was  he  his  own  scourger,  as  have  been  many 
saints  that  shine  in  the  papal  calendar.  Instead  of  that  antiquity  of  ten  or 
twelve  or  fifteen  centuries,  of  which  Anti-christ  vaunts  so  much,  the  cross 
reveals  a  more  ancient  antiquity  of  eighteen  centuries.  Instead  of  its  hazy 
and  dubious  traditions,  scripture  verity ;  and  instead  of  its  councils  and  fa- 
thers, and  a  long  succession  of  sinners  wearing  tiaras,  and  claiming  names 
of  blasphemy — a  primitive  Apostolic  church,  and  Christ  for  "  the  chief 
Apostle  and  Bishop  of  our  profession,"  whose  priesthood  is  the  unchangea- 
ble priesthood  of  Melchisedec,  and  whose  dominion  is  an  everlasting  do- 
minion. It  acknowledges  no  religion  that  is  merely  a  religion  of  the  senses 
or  the  imagination.  The  feelings  that  stirred  Paul  at  Athens,  as  he  stood 
amid  its  altars  and  gazed  on  lines  of  images  crowding  its  every  street, 
would  have  sprung  up  as  naturally  within  him,  had  he  stood  beneath  the 
vaults  of  many  a  cathedral,  with  its  "  dim  religious  light,"  and  rich  with 
the  trophies  of  the  pencil  and  the  chisel.  As  Christ  gave  it,  and  as  Paul 
dispensed  it,  the  gospel  of  the  cross  is  the  grand  Iconoclast  principle  of  the 
age.  And,  as  of  old  it  routed  the  gods  from  the  summit  of  shadowy 
Olympus,  and  in  later  days  drove  into  darkness  all  the  deities  of  the 
Valhalla ;  so  will  it  ultimately  abolish  all  the  idols  out  of  the  earth.  And 
not  the  graven  image  only  of  wood  and  of  stone,  but  the  idols  also  of  which 
Bacon  has  spoken,  the  idols  of  the  forum  and  the  cavern,  the  prejudices  of 
the  busy,  and  the  errors  of  the  studious.15 

15  The  writer  has  long  believed  and  elsewhere  remarked  years  since,  that  in  the  inevitable  conflict 
of  the  truth  with  Romanism  in  our  days,  we  need  to  allow  and  to  emulate  more  than  some  Pro- 
testants seem  disposed  to  do,  the  excellencies  of  individuals  and  of  individual  practices  in  that  an- 
ti  christian  communion:  and  that,  especially  in  the  field  of  missions  we  may  learn  from  her  history 
much  to  inspirit,  and  somewhat  to  instruct  us.  Since  the  delivery  of  this  address  he  has  met 
with  the  following  observations  from  a  writer  on  missions,  whose  work  is  probably  in  the  hands  of 
but  few  American  Christians.  Though  containing  incidental  expressions  the  present  writer 
might  not  have  preferred  to  employ  himself,  they  seem  so  admirable  on  the  whole,  in  sentiment, 
temper  and  style,  that  he  could  not  deny  himself  the  gratification  of  copying  them.  They  are 
from  the  French  of  M.  Bost.  He  is  known  to  English  Christians  as  the  author  of  a  history  of 
Moravianism,  published  by  the  London  Religious  Tract  Society,  and  of  a  life,  and  collection  of 
the  letters  of  Felix  Neff,  whose  intimate  friendship  he  enjoyed,  and  whose  opposition  to  Roman- 
ism, we  need  not  say  he  shares.  He  is  an  active  and  efficient  laborer  in  the  revival  of  evangelical 
truth  in  the  churches  of  Switzerland.  He  published  in  four  volumes,  a  French  version  of  the 
History  of  Christian  Missions,  written  by  the  excellent  Blumhardt,  formerly  head  of  the  Mission 
School  at  Basle,  which  has  sent  so  many  laborers  into  most  quarters  of  the  earth.  Blumhardt's 
death  left  the  work  incomplete.  In  his  own  original  preface  to  his  French  translation  from  the 
original  German,  31.  Bost  has  these  observations  on  the  justice  to  be  rendered  the  Romish 
church.    We  present  them  in  a  free  and  hasty  version  from  his  French  original. 

"  But  here  I  reach  a  point  yet  more  important  than  any  that  has  preceded  it.  It  is  one  upon 
which  I  am  happy  to  find  my  sentiments  in  unison  with  those  of  my  author*  ;  as  they  will  also 
prove  to  be,  I  think,  with  those  of  every  man  who  has  studied  history  in  a  spirit  of  impartiality. 
I  refer  to  the  twofold  judgment  to  which  the  facts  of  history  conduct  us,  as  to  the  good  and  the 
evil,  the  two  sides  that  are  found  in  the  Romish  church,  whether  regarded  at  any  given  moment 
in  her  existence,  or  at  different  eras  in  her  career.  I  shall  dwell,  at  some  length,  on  this 
grave  topic. 

'•If  all  that  were  required,  were  but  to  discuss  this  subject  in  generalities  and  as  an  abstract 

*  M.  Blumhardt. 


42 

Bring  up  all  forms  of  error,  and  we  say,  however  numerous  and  how- 
ever venomous  the  viperous  brood,  the  heads  of  all  are  yet  to  be  crushed 
against  the  cross  of  Calvary.     Produce  all  the  spiritual  diseases,  aggra- 

question,  the  affair  would  be  one  of  the  utmost  facility.  History  presents  us  in  this  church,  on 
the  one  hand,  objects  so  grand  and  lovely,  and  on  the  other,  those  so  atrocious,  that  it  becomes 
impossible  to  persist,  as  regards  this  community,  in  that  narrow  judgment  which  sees  in  her  only 
every  thing  divine,  or  only  every  thing  devilish.  On  the  contrary  we  find  there  to  a  demonstra- 
tion a  decided  intermixture  of  God's  work  and  of  the  work  of  Satan  ;  just  as  one  may  see  a  few 
paces  from  the  spot  where  I  am  writing,  two  streams  that  flow  the  one  beside  the  other,  in  the 
same  channel,  the  one  all  turbid  and  discolored — the  other  blue  as  the  skies.*  A  little  farther  on 
they  intermingle,  but  even  yet  they  remain  distinct  :  the  good  does  not  destroy  the  evil,  the  evil 
does  not  destroy  the  good.  It  would  then  be  a  matter  of  no  difficulty  to  decide  this  question  in 
the  peaceful  study,  and  amid  the  silence  of  our  retirement.  There  it  is  perfectly  simple,  and 
admits  of  no  dispute.  The  Romish  church  has  exhibited  in  all  ages,  just  as  she  continues  in  our 
own  times  to  exhibit,  a  decided  alliance  of  evil  and  good  ;  and  of  these,  each  perhaps  is  carried 
to  a  degree  in  which  it  surpasses  what  is  to  be  found  any  where  else. 

"  But  if  we  utter  this  judgment  before  the  public,  immediately  passions  are  inflamed,  interests 
are  wounded,  and  we  touch,  so  to  speak,  the  raw  flesh.  In  fact,  the  papacy,  like  a  snake  bruised 
beneath  the  wheels  of  a  passing  chariot,  but  that  is  not  killed,  is  so  far  from  dead,  as  to  be  rising 
again,  and  beginning  anew  to  hiss  and  bare  its  fangs.  Powerless  as  it  will  be  before  God  when- 
ever God  shall  see  fit  to  command  it  again  into  the  pit,  it  is  as  yet  more  powerful  than  man,  and 
seems,  under  more  than  one  aspect,  to  resemble  the  strong  man  armed  who  is  named  in  the  gos- 
pel. She  is  all  the  stronger  and  all  the  better  armed,  from  the  fact  that  to  all  the  weapons  of 
brute  force,  she  knows  how  to  unite  those  of  artifice  and  restless  intrigue,  and  even  to  associate 
with  these,  in  many  cases,  the  influence  of  a  profound  piety.  By  turns,  with  clasped  hands,  the 
eyes  raised  to  heaven,  and  clad  in  sackcloth,  she  is  the  ardent  and  high-minded  missionary ; 
and  next  she  is  the  courtier,  climbing,  flattering,  and  domineering;  attacking  by  the  arts  of 
policy,  no  less  than  by  the  aids  of  religion,  bearing  down  the  devout  by  appeals  to  his  conscience, 
and  holding  out  lures  to  the  ambition  of  the  diplomatist ;  caressing  now  the  anarchist,  and  now 
the  despot;  the  foe  of  republics,  and  yet  the  assassin  of  kings  ;  changing  her  hues  like  the  cha- 
meleon, as  you  observe  her  at  Dublin,  at  London,  at  Madrid,  or  at  Paris ;  winning  over  the  sterner 
spirits  by  her  Trappists,  and  the  libertines  by  her  Madonnas:  drawing  you  heavenwards  by  her 
incense,  her  concerts,  and  her  sacred  processions ;  and  allowing  you  to  slide  into  hell  by  her 
cheapened  absolutions,  and  by  penances,  that  exempt  you  from  the  repentance  of  the  heart; 
founding  schools  in  Italy,  and  overturning  them  in  France  ;  by  turns,  O'Connel,  La  Mennais, 
Xavier,  Vincent  de  Paul,  Ravaillac  and  Feuelon ;  it  is  the  same  church  who,  in  the  middle  ages, 
copied  for  us  the  sacred  scriptures,  and  who,  in  our  times,  is  burning  them.  At  the  present  time, 
the  blows  which  are  aimed  at  her,  have  been  called  forth,  it  must  be  allowed,  rather  by  skepticism 
than  by  zeal  for  God.  And  although  we  may  know  what  will  be  her  last  end,  yet  we  know  not 
its  exact  moment;  and  above  all,  we  know  not  how  much  she  may  yet  grasp,  before  she  sinks. 
She  is  threatening  England.  She  is  infiltrating  herself  into  all  parts  of  the  United  States.  She 
is  rising  anew  in  France  ;  and  there  she  is  met,  (and  this  is  the  observation  we  have  been  desirous 
thus  to  introduce,)  by  a  spirit  of  partizunship  on  the  side  of  her  adversaries,  which,  inclining 
them  to  treat  her  as  enemies  are  usually  treated,  with  blows,  blows  continually,  and  nothing  but 
blows,  does  not  stop  to  ask,  if  even  she  have  not,  in  some  points,  claims  upon  our  justice. 

"  And  yet,  it  is  to  Protestants  that  we  speak,  if  we  believe  that  on  our  side  is  found  the  truth, 
let  us  walk  in  the  truth,  as  did  the  Master  whom  we  claim  to  follow.  Let  us,  in  consequence,  be 
just  even  towards  the  most  unjust.  Let  us  learn  to  guard  ourselves  against  that  absurd  and  heed- 
less vanity  which  sees  in  its  own  ranks  but  splendid  virtues,  and  in  the  opponents  but  faults  and 
wrongs.  Let  us  recollect  that  injustice  never  yet  was  able  to  found  an  enduring  structure  ; — 
that  the  disciple  of  Jesus  is  teachable  towards  all,  ever  ready  to  learn,  prompt  in  humbling  him- 
self, eager  to  find  good  wherever  it  is  to  be  met,  readily  and  with  joy  acknowledging  it,  and, 
above  all,  having  sufficient  confidence  in  the  sacred  cause  of  Christ's  gospel,  never  to  fear  being 
generous  to  any  party,  be  it  what  it  may.  Many  see  danger  in  the  concessions  that  might  possibly 
be  made.  But  in  what  concessions'?  In  those  which  should  be  unjust?  We  ought  never  to 
make  any  such  ;  not  because  they  would  be  concessions,  but  because  they  would  be  errors.  In 
those  which  should  be  just  ?  We  ought  to  make  all  such,  and  to  make  them  without  fear.    With- 

*  The  allusion  is  probably  to  the  confluence  of  the  Rhone  and  the  Arve,  near  Geneva. 


43 

vated,  various  and  loathsome,  that  have  made  earth  one  huge  lazar-housc, 
and  we  lay  our  hand  upon  the  cross  and  say,  here  is  the  catholicon,  the 
sure  and  sufficient  remedy  for  all  the  countless  maladies  of  the  soul.     Re- 


out  fear,  did  I  say  ? — We  ought  to  tremble  lest  we  should  leave  a  single  one  unmade, — to  tremble, 
lest  we  leave  to  our  enemy  a  single  point  in  which  he  would  have  the  advantage  over  us  ;  a  single 
virtue  in  which  he  surpassed  us.  In  truth,  the  kingdom  of  God  is  a  combat  of  holiness  against 
sin,  much  more  than  it  is  a  conflict  of  opinions,  of  dogmas,  or  of  hierarchies.  Let  this  rule,  then, 
without  ceasing,  be  heard  resounding  over  our  heads:  '  By  their  fruits  shall  ye  know  them.' 
And  let  us  not  say,  or  rather  let  us  cease  saying,  as  it  often  has  been  done,  that  this  rule  is  a 
vague  one  ;  for  on  whom  does  our  censure  in  such  case  fall?  And  who  is  He  that  gave  us  it,  but 
the  only  wise,  the  friend  of  the  lowly  and  simple  in  heart,  who  brings  down  questions  the  most 
profound  and  the  most  abstract,  to  principles  the  most  popular  and  practical,  reducing  thera  to 
questions  of  obedience,  of  love,  and  of  lowliness. 

"  Protestants  then  let  us  continue  to  be ;  but  let  us  be  humble.  Protestants  let  us  be  ;  but  let 
us  not  proceed,  from  an  apprehension  of  wronging  the  doctrines  of  divine  grace,  to  fall  into  a 
dread  of  good  works,  or  perhaps  to  regard  as  good  works,  and  works  quite  sufficient,  the  style  of 
doing  good,  as  by  turning  a  crank,  adopted  in  certain  societies,  in  which  one  does  good  with  bis 
neighbor's  money,  and  in  his  ambition  to  convert  the  world,  forgets  too  often  his  own  proper  and 
personal  sanctification.  Protestants  let  us  be  ;  but  let  us  know  how  to  pardon  others  besides  St. 
Paul,  if  they  mortify  their  body,  and  keep  it  in  subjection,  through  fear  lest  having  preached  to 
others,  they  become  themselves  castaways.  Let  us  relinquish  those  vague  and  contemptuous 
declamations  against  superstition,  which  better  become  the  enemies  of  the  gospel  than  disciples 
of  the  Saviour.  And  let  us  remember,  that  if  it  be  wrong  to  build  on  a  good  foundation  '  hay, 
wood  and  stubble,'  we  must  yet,  at  the  same  time,  know  how  to  respect  that  laborer  who,  besides 
these  worthless  materials,  brings  gold  and  precious  stones,  and  this,  perhaps,  in  greater  abun- 
dance than  ourselves.  Let  us  not  fear  to  make  the  declaration.  From  that  moment  in  which  the 
Protestant  church  shall  have  imitated,  embraced  and  reverenced  all  that  there  is  of  excellence 
and  superiority  in  the  Romish  communion,  from  that  moment  the  Romish  communion  must  fall, 
and  will  in  fact  fall,  because  of  the  crying  abuses  contained  within  her:  but  not  one  instant 
sooner.  And  until  that  time,  she  will,  on  the  cottrary,  continue  to  exist,  for  the  purpose  of 
humbling  us,  for  the  purpose  of  holding  us  in  check,  for  the  purpose  of  counterpoising  us  in  those 
points  in  which  we  refuse  to  obey,  and  for  the  purpose  of  accomplishing  a  sort  of  good  which  we 
have  not  learned  to  do.  God  compensates  for  one  extreme  by  allowing  another  ;  and  it  is  not 
until  the  day  when  our  principles  shall  no  longer  present  any  void  and  any  vacant  spot,  that  we 
can  claim  to  look  for  the  fall  of  a  system  which  will  then  oppose  to  us  nought  but  inferiorities. 
Then  the  two  communions,  like  two  dark  clouds,  surcharged  with  opposite  electricity,  will  ap- 
proach each  other  to  intermingle  and  become  one  :  a  spark  from  the  higher  regions  will  produce 
a  sudden  fusion,  and  a  shower  of  grace  pouring  itself  upon  the  earth,  there  will  then  start  up  in 
abundance  new  harvests,  on  the  one  side  and  on  the  other. 

"  But  it  is  not  the  mere  exactitude  of  doctrinal  orthodoxy,  that  will  be  honored  to  bring  about 
this  wondrous  result.  It  will  be  rather  the  sacred  union  formed  between  Truth  and  Holiness ;  and 
our  God  will  then  be  glorified,  not  amid  some  of  his  people  only,  but  iu  all  his  saints. 

"  Such  are  the  declarations  that  I  have  believed  myself  bound  to  make  in  the  outset,  when 
publishing  this  work  :  there  are,  I  believe,  some  readers  that  will  need  them.  We  shall,  along 
our  way,  and  this  long  before  the  sixteenth  century,  find  many  Protestants,  it  is  true  :  but  yet  we 
shall  see  too,  that  God  glorified  himself  also  in  men  who  were  imbued  with  many  prejudices  ;  and 
the  reader  must  have  little  Christian  feeling,  who  is  not  touched  with  admiration,  and  softened 
into  tenderness,  at  the  sight  of  a  multitude  of  things  that  present  themselves  to  our  view,  even 
in  those  ages  when  superstition  had  already  invaded  the  church. 

"  Finally,  when  all  this  shall  have  been  said  and  admitted,  it  is  yet  most  true,  and  history 
proves  it  to  demonstration,  that  in  proportion  as  Rome  more  and  more  intermingled  herself  in 
the  government  of  the  church,  in  that  same  proportion  also  did  the  Spirit  of  God  withdraw  from 
it.  The  safety  and  the  life  of  every  church  whatsoever  are  found  in  obedience  to  the  laws  of 
Christ 

"I  would  no  further  anticipate  the  details  contained  in  the  body  of  this  work;  but  I  found 
myself  compelled  to  defend,  as  in  advance,  those  views,  and  as  I  may  emphatically  call  it  that 
comprehensiveness  of  principle,  which  it  has  seemed  to  me  are  demanded  alike  by  Christian 
truth,  by  Christian  wisdom,  and  by  Christian  humility." — A.  Bost.  Histoire  de  Vetablistemcnt 
du  Chrislianisme,  Geneve,  1838.    1. 1.    Preface  du  Tradvcteur,  pp.  viii— xiii. 


44 

ceive,  love,  diffuse  and  exemplify  that  doctrine  ;  and  every  error  is  sub- 
verted, and  every  truth  is  ultimately  established. 

We  might  glance  at  the  effects  upon  the  interests  of  literature,  of  the 
resurrection  of  the  true  doctrine  of  the  cross  at  the  era  of  the  Reformation. 
We  might  look  to  the  splendid  and  varied  literary  results  of  the  revival  of 
this  doctrine  among  the  Jansenists  of  France,  when  the  literature  of  the 
nation  in  logic  and  in  style,  in  sobriety  and  manly  vigor  of  thought,  as  well 
as  in  purity  of  moral  and  religious  character,  was  so  rapidly  advanced  by 
the  devout  Port  Royalists. — when  Tillemont  produced  the  erudite,  candid, 
and  accurate  history  that  received  the  praises  of  Gibbon,  when  Nicole 
wrote  so  beautifully  on  Christian  morals,  De  Sacy  furnished  to  the  nation 
what  remains  yet  their  best  version  of  the  Bible,  Lancelot  aided  by  his 
grammars  the  progress  of  classical  science,  Pascal  in  so  many  walks  dis- 
played such  rare  and  varied  excellence,  while  Arnauld  thundered  as  the 
doughtiest  theologian  of  the  schools — when  Racine,  the  pupil  of  the  com- 
munity, became  the  most  finished  of  French  poets,  Boileau,  their  friend, 
the  most  perfect  and  most  pure  of  French  satirists,  and  Mad.  de  Sevigne, 
their  admirer,  the  most  graceful  and  simple  of  French  letter-writers. 

The  cross  of  Christ  thoroughly  appreciated  and  ardently  loved  is  an 
adequate  remedy  for  all  the  evils  of  the  world,  and  necessarily,  therefore, 
for  all  the  evils  of  the  world's  literature.  It  contains  the  only  elements 
which  can  counteract  all  the  perils  we  have  described,  satisfy  the  demands 
of  the  human  heart,  and  correct  the  wanderings  of  the  human  reason, 
and  thus  remedy  the  evils,  be  they  literary  or  political,  of  society,  by  sup- 
plying those  wants  of  our  nature  out  of  which  these  evils  have  sprung,  and 
by  restraining  the  excesses  to  which  these  wants  lead.  As  to  the  casuistry 
and  superstition,  the  fanaticism  and  persecution,  that  have  sometimes 
abused  the  name  of  the  cross  for  their  shelter,  we  can  only  say  that  the 
doctrine  is  no  more  chargeable  with  these  its  perversions,  than  is  the  dread 
Name  of  God  responsible  for  all  the  fearful  profanation  made  of  it,  when 
it  is  used  as  an  oath  to  give  sting  to  a  jest,  or  to  add  venom  to  a  curse. 

But  some  feel,  and  others  have  intimated  that  the  cross  of  Christ  has 
been  tried,  and  has  failed.  The  church  has  tried  substitutes  for  it  indeed, 
and  these  have  ever  failed.  But  the  cross  itself  has  not  yet  been  tried  by 
the  church  continuously  and  fully.  Protestantism  even  has  talked  too 
much  of  it  as  justifying  the  sinner,  but  shrunk  from  it  as  sanctifying  him. 
As  to  its  failures,  when  really  tried,  they  have  never  been  more  than  ap- 
parent. In  the  hurry  and  cry  of  the  conflict,  the  voice  of  evil  is  louder 
than  that  of  good.  When  most  seeming  to  fail,  the  cross  is  but  like  its 
Founder,  when  amid  the  growing  darkness  of  his  last  agony,  the  Dragon 
seemed  writhed  around  him,  and  the  fatal  sting  of  death  was  transfixing 
him.  For  a  time  the  race  of  mankind  might  seem  to  have  lost  their  Re- 
deemer, and  the  gates  of  Hope  as  they  swung  slowly  back,  seemed  about 
to  close  for  ever  upon  a  sinking  world.  But  when  that  darkness  was  past, 
and  the  field  of  battle  was  again  seen,  it  was  the  Dragon  that  lay  out- 
stretched and  stiffened,  with  bruised  head — all  feeble  and  still,  in  the 
shadow  of  that  silent  cross ;  while  radiant  in  the  distance,  were  the  open 


45 

portals  of  Heaven,    and   earth   lay  bathed    in   the   lustrous   dawn  of  a 
new  Hope. 

"  For  the  gates  of  paradise 

Open  stand  on  Calvary." 

And  when  some  forty  days  have  passed,  there  is  seen  in  the  glittering 
air  over  the  summit  of  Olivet,  the  form  of  the  unharmed  and  ascending 
Redeemer.  As  victor  over  death  and  hell,  he  is  leading  captivity  captive, 
returning  to  his  proper  and  native  glory,  and  going  before  to  prepare  a 
royal  mansion  and  a  crown  of  righteousness  for  all  his  cross-bearing  fol- 
lowers. Thus,  was  seeming  failure  the  secret  and  the  forerunner  of  real 
victory.  So  has  it  since  been.  The  days  of  the  French  revolution,  when 
infidelity  was  ready  to  triumph,  ushered  in  the  era  of  foreign  missions, 
when  Satan's  oldest  seats  underwent  a  new  invasion.  So  will  it  continue 
to  be.  Every  conflict,  sore  and  long  though  it  may  be,  will  but  add  to 
the  trophies  of  the  Redeemer's  cross,  till  around  it  cluster  as  votive  offer- 
ings, the  wreaths  of  every  science  and  the  palms  of  every  art — and  that 
instrument  of  shame  and  anguish  be  hailed  as  the  hinge  of  the  world's 
history  and  destiny,  the  theme  of  all  our  study,  and  the  central  sun  of  all 
our  hopes,  the  sanction  to  the  universe  of  all  God's  laws,  and  the  seal  to 
all  the  elect  of  our  race  of  an  endless  redemption  from  the  belief,  power, 
and  practice  of  all  evil.  In  the  coming  years  of  the  world's  history,  the 
presaging  eye  may  look  forward  to  the  fierce  clash  of  opinions,  the  tumult 
of  parties,  and  the  collision  of  empires.  But  when  the  waters  are  out, 
and  one  barrier  after  another  is  overwhelmed,  and  one  sea-mark  topples 
and  disappears  after  another  beneath  the  engulfing  flood,  God  is  but  over- 
turning what  man  has  built.  The  foundation  of  his  own  hand  will  remain 
unshaken.  The  floods  of  the  people  cannot  submerge  it ;  the  gates  of  heU 
cannot  prevail  against  its  quiet  might. 

We  feel  that  we  need  your  forgiveness  for  the  length  to  which  we  have 
pursued  this  topic.  But  the  subject,  in  its  earlier  portion  at  least,  was  a 
complex  one  ;  on  the  latter  portion  of  it,  if  any  where,  the  Christian  loves 
to  linger  ;  and  dwelling  as  we  had  been  compelled  to  do  on  the  gloomier 
side  of  the  picture,  we  may  now  be  pardoned,  if  the  eye  loves  to  rest  on 
that  light  from  heaven,  and  those  radiant  and  celestial  omens,  that  de- 
scend upon  this  darkness  from  the  cross  of  our  Lord. 

And  now,  in  conclusion  will  you  allow,  gentlemen,  the  stranger,  as  he 
is  to  most  of  you,  who  addresses  you,  to  appeal  to  you  as  students  ?  Your 
studies  have  taught  you  how  the  best  interests  of  the  nation  are  bound  up 
with  those  of  learning;  and  we  have  endeavored  at  this  time  to  revive  a 
lesson  your  respected  and  beloved  instructors  have  often  enforced,  that 
the  interests  of  learning  are  bound  up  with  those  of  the  gospel,  and  that 
there  only  is  found  a  knowledge  which  to  have  learned,  will  form  the  best 
preparation  for  rightly  improving  all  other  knowledge  ; — which  not  to  have 
learned,  will  render  all  other  learning  finally  nugatory  to  its  possessor. 

Amid  the  various  and  multiform  evils  that  threaten  our  literature,  the 
cross  of  Christ  is  the  one  conservative  principle,  and  it  needs  but  to  be 


46 

fully  presented,  to  prove  ever  the  sufficient  remedy.  We  entreat  you  then, 
for  yourselves,  to  view  habitually  this  cross  in  either  of  its  aspects,  as  re- 
vealing the  way  of  the  sinner's  justification,  and  as  showing  the  process  of 
the  believer's  sanctification. 

Look  to  it  as  your  salvation.  You  need  to  be  transformed  by  its  holy 
influences.  There  learn  the  love  of  God  as  poetry  cannot  paint  it, — the 
wisdom  of  God  as  philosophy  in  her  boldest  flights  never  discovered  it, — 
the  holiness  of  God,  as  not  even  Sinai  proclaimed  it.  Receive  this  cruci- 
fied Christ  as  your  Saviour.  Say,  as  you  raise  your  eyes  to  that  throne 
of  suffering  mercy,  in  the  language  of  that  old  monkish  verse  from  the 
Dies  Iras,  which  Johnson,  stern  as  was  his  rugged  nature,  could  never  re- 
peat without  bursting  into  a  flood  of  tears. 

"  Quaerens  me  sedisti  lassus, 
Redeinisti  crucem  passus  : 
Tantus  labor  non  sit  cassus  !16 

Again,  many  or  most  of  you  look  to  be  preachers  of  this  gospel.  Be 
the  cross  your  theme.  Christ  as  there  lifted  up,  will  draw  all  men  unto 
him.     And  the  more  the  school  or  the  press  may  eject  this  doctrine,  but 

16  ii  Wearily  for  me  thou  soughtest, 

On  the  cross  my  soul  thou  boughtest : 
Lose  not  all  for  which  thou  wroughtest" 

It  is  to  Mrs.  Piozzi  that  we  owe  this  anecdote  of  Johnson.  "  When  be  would  try  to  repeat  the 
celebrated  Prosa  Ecclesiastica  pro  Mortuis,  as  it  is  called,  beginning  Dies  Ira,  dies  ilia,  he  could 
never  pass  the  stanza  ending  thus,  Tantus  labor  non  sit  cassus,  without  bursting  into  a  flood  of 
tears:  which  sensibility  I  used  to  quote  against  him  when  he  would  inveigh  against  devotional 
poetry,  and  protest  that  all  religious  verses  were  cold  and  feeble,  and  unworthy  the  subject." 
Croker's  Boswell,  London,  1839.    Vol.  ix.  p.  73. 

A  small  volume,  not  without  interest,  might  be  compiled  from  the  literary  history  of  the  Dies 
Irae,  and  the  versions  it  has  received  into  various  European  languages,  and  from  examples  of  the 
powerful  influence  it  has  exercised  upon  the  feelings  and  course  of  individuals.  It  can  scarce  be 
regarded  as  a  waste  of  time,  to  observe  and  analyze  the  power  this  hymn,  from  the  awfulness  of 
its  theme,  and  its  own  quaint,  antique  and  massive  grandeur  of  structure,  has  acquired  over  the 
hearts  of  men.  Unlike  the  Stabat  Mater,  another  hymn  of  the  Romish  service,  with  which  by 
mere  critics  it  is  ordinarily  classed,  it  is  free  from  idolatry.  A  devout  Protestant  cannot  unite  in 
the  Stabat  Mater.  It  degrades  the  Redeemer  by  idolizing  his  earthly  parent.  But  in  the  Dies 
Irae,  salvation  is  represented  as  being  of  Christ  alone,  and  as  being  of  mere  grace  :  "  Qui  salvan- 
dos  salvas  gratis."  Combining  somewhat  of  the  rhythm  of  classical  Latin,  with  the  rhymes 
of  the  Mediaeval  Latin,  treating  of  a  theme  full  of  awful  sublimity,  and  grouping  together  the 
most  startling  imagery  of  scripture,  as  to'the  last  judgment,  and  throwing  them  into  yet  stronger  re- 
lief by  the  barbaric  simplicity  of  the  style  in  which  they  are  set,  and  adding  to  all  these  its  full  and 
trumpet-like  cadences,  and  uniting  with  the  impassioned  feeling  of  the  South  whence  it  emanated, 
the  gravity  of  the  North,  whose  severer  style  it  adopted,  it  is  well  fitted  to  arouse  the  hearer.  It 
forms  a  part  of  the  Romish  service  for  the  dead.  Albert  Knapp,  one  of  the  living  sacred  poets  of 
Protestant  Germany,  and  the  compiler  of  a  large  body  of  hymns,  the  Liederschatz,  has  inserted  a 
German  version  of  it  in  his  voluminous  collection.  (Evang.  Liederschatz.  Stuttgart,  1837.  Vol. 
II.  p.  786,  Hymn  3475.)  He  compares  the  original  to  a  blast  from  the  trump  of  the  resurrection, 
and  while  himself  attempting  a  version  of  it,  declares  its  original  power  inimitable  in  any  trans- 
lation. (Ibid.  p.  870.)  He  refers  to  other  versions  of  it  made  by  the  distinguished  scholar, 
Aug.  Win.  Schlegel,by  Claus  Harms,  one  of  the  most  eminent  of  the  living  evangelical  preachers 
of  Germany,  as  well  as  by  J.  G.  Fichte,  by  A.  L.  Follen,  J.  G.  Von  Meyer,  and  the  Chevalier 
Bunseu.  The  translation  of  Bunsen,  with  some  slight  variations,  is  appended  by  Tholuck  to  his 
sermon  on  the  Feast  day  of  the  Dead.  (Tholuck,  Predigten.  Hamburg,  1838,  vol.  I.  pp.  28,  and 
1 49.)    Professors  Edwards  and  Park,  in  their   Selections  from  German  Literature,  (Andover, 


47 

ihe  more  let  the  pulpit  insist  upon,  reiterate,  and  thunder  it  forth,  in  all 
the  tongues  of  the  earth.  For  it  is  to  you  a  surer  pledge  of  success  than 
that  imaged  cross  which  Constantine  put  into  the  labarum  of  the  empire, 
was  of  victory  to  the  imperial  hosts  whom  it  so  often  guided   to  conquest. 


1839,)  quote  the  remark  of  Tholuck,  as  to  the  deep  sensation  produced  by  the  singing  of  this 
hymn  in  the  University  church :  "  The  impression,  especially  that  which  was  made  by  the  last 
words,  as  sung  by  the  University  choir  alone,  will  be  forgotten  by  no  one."  They  introduce  also 
the  words  of  an  American  clergyman,  present  on  the  occasion,  who  says  :  "It  was  impossible  to 
refrain  from  tears,  when  at  the  seventh  stanza,  all  the  trumpets  ceased,  and  the  choir,  accompa- 
nied by  a  softened  tone  of  the  organ,  sung  those  touching  lines,  "  Quid  sum  miser  tunc  dic- 
turus,  &c."  Like  Knapp,they  unite  in  the  judgment,  that  no  translation  has  equalled  or  can 
equal  the  original  Latin.  (German  Selections,  p.  185.)  Dr.  H.  A.  Daniel,  another  German 
scholar,  in  his  Bluethenstrauss.  alt-latein.  Kirchenpoesie,  Halle,  1840,  has  inserted,  besides  the 
original  Latin,  and  the  German  version  of  Bunsen,  (pp.  78  and  116,)  another  version  of  his  own 
('p.  119.)     Goethe  has  introduced  snatches  of  the  original  Latin  into  the  first  part  of  his  Faust. 

The  admiration  which  Sir  Walter  Scott  felt  for  it  is  well  known.  He  has  introduced  an 
English  version  of  a  few  of  its  opening  stanzas  into  the  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel,  whence  Bishop 
Heber  adopted  it  into  his  Hymns  for  the  Church  Service.  They  are  too  few  to  give  any  just  idea 
of  the  original,  and  the  measure  of  the  old  hymn  is  not  as  well  retained  as  in  the  best  German 
versions.  Knapp,  Daniel  and  Bunsen  all  preserve  the  double  rhymes  of  the  Latin  original ; 
Scott  and  the  earlier  English  translators  have  given  but  a  single  rhymed  ending  to  their  verses. 
In  this  respect  the  English  version  of  the  London  Christian  Observer,  (Vol.xzvi.  p.  26,)  copied  by 
Edwards  and  Park,  (German  Selections,  p.  185,)  also  comes  short  of  its  model,  as  does  that  of  the 
Rev.  Isaac  Williams,  one  of  the  writers  of  the  Oxford  tracts,  and  who  contested  unsuccessfully 
with  the  Rev.  Mr.  Garbett,  the  election  to  the  Professorship  of  Poetry  in  Oxford,  on  the  retire- 
ment of  Keble.  Williams' version  may  be  found  in  his  Thoughts  in  Past  Years,  (Am.  ed.  p.  308.) 
A  writer  in  the  New -York  Evangelist,  (October,  1841,)  has  judiciously  retained  the  double  rhyme, 
but  the  reader  misses  the  antique  simplicity  and  rugged  strength  of  the  original.  Sir  Walter 
Scott  in  his  letter  to  a  brother  poet,  Crabbe,  remarks  :  "  To  my  Gothic  ear,  the  Stabat  Mater,  the 
Dies  Ir a,  and  some  of  the  other  hymns  of  the  Catholic  church,  are  more  solemn  and  affecting 
than  the  fine  classical  poetry  of  Buchanan  ;  the  one  has  the  gloomy  dignity  of  a  Gothic  church, 
and  reminds  us  constantly  of  the  worship  to  which  it  is  dedicated  ;  the  other  is  more  like  a  pagan 
temple  recalling  to  our  memory  the  classical  and  fabulous  deities."  (LockharVs  Life  of  Scott, 
Philad.,  1838,  vol.  i.  p.  430.)  In  his  last  days  of  life  and  reason,  he  was  overheard  quoting  it 
with  fragments  of  the  bible,  and  the  old  Scotch  Psalms.  "  We  very  often,"  says  his  kinsman  and 
biographer,  "  heard  distinctly  the  cadence  of  the  Dies  Ira."  (Ibid.  vol.  ii.  p.  734.)  Its  lines 
haunted  iu  like  manner  the  dying  hours  of  an  earlier  aud  inferior  poet,  the  Earl  of  Roscommon, 
He  was  the  author  of  an  English  version  of  the  hymn,  and,  as  we  learn  from  Johnson's  Lives  of 
the  Poets,  he  uttered,  in  the  moment  when  he  expired,  with  great  energy  and  devotion,  two  lines 
of  his  own  translation  of  the  Dies  Iroe  : 

"My  God,  my  Father  and  my  Friend, 
Do  not  forsake  me  in  my  end." 

Milman,  another  distinguished  name  in  English  poetry,  has,  in  his  history  of  Christianity,  rated 
this  hymn  as  superior  to  any  of  the  poetry  of  the  Christian  church  in  the  early  ages.  "As  to  the 
hymns,  (setting  aside  the  TeDeum),  paradoxical  as  it  may  sound,  I  cannot  but  think  the  latter 
and  more  barbarous  the  best.  There  is  nothing  in  my  judgment  to  be  compared  with  the 
monkish  "Dies  ira,  dies  ilia,"  or  even  the  "  Stabat  Mater."  (Milman,  GalignanVs  Ed.  II.  p. 
336,  note.)  Roscommon's  translation,  already  the  subject  of  reference,  is  said  by  War  ton  to  be 
largely  indebted  to  the  earlier  version  of  Crashaw,  a  sacred  poet  of  true  genius,  whose  rendering 
of  the  Die*  Ira,  was  in  the  judgment  of  Pope,  the  best  of  his  compositions.  (WillmotVs  Lives 
of  Sacred  poets,  Land.  1839,  Vol.  I.  p.  317).  This  work  of  Crashaw  may  be  found  in  Anderson's 
British  Poets,  (Vol.  IV.  p.  745.)  Crashaw  was  one  of  the  clergymen  of  the  English  church,  who 
during,  or  soon  after  the  days  of  Laud,  and  probably  from  the  influence  of  that  school  whose 
leader  and  martyr  Laud  was,  went  over,  as  by  a  natural  progression,  unto  the  Romish  communion. 
Drummond  of  Hawthornden,  has  also  imitated  the  Dies  Ira.  (Anderson,  IV.  682.)  Evelyn, 
the  author  of  the  Sylva,  and  the  friend  of  Jeremy  Taylor,  seems  also  to  have  tested  his  strength 


48 

Do  not  crucify  that  Lord  "  afresh"  by  your  sins.  Nor  trust  to  your  office  and 
work  as  preserving  you  from  these.  See  in  Paul,  the  distress  an  apostle 
felt,  lest  having  preached  to  others,  he  himself  should  prove  a  cast-away. 
The  anxieties  of  such  a  hero  and  martyr,  lest  he  should  turn  and  perish, 
may  well  arouse  you  to  a  salutary  self-distrust.     The  pulsations  of  that 

upon  the  same  task.  Id  their  correspondence,  Taylor  asks  a  copy  of  his  friend's  version.  {Me- 
moirs of  Evelyn,  Vol.  IV.  p.  26). 

Upon  the  Dies  Ira,  Mozart  has  founded  his  celebrated  Requiem,  the  latest  and  not  the  least 
celebrated  of  his  works.  The  excitement  of  his  feelings  whilst  employed  on  this  musical  compo- 
sition, is  supposed  to  have  hastened  his  end,  which  occurred,  indeed,  before  he  could  fully  com- 
plete the  task. 

What  has  wrought  so  strongly  on  the  graver  temperament  of  the  North,  was  not,  although 
Gothic  in  its  structure,  likely  to  remain  without  any  effect  on  the  quicker  feeliDgsof  the  South. 
Ancina,  at  that  time  a  professor  of  medicine  in  the  University  of  Turin,  was  one  day  hearing 
mass,  when  the  Dies  Irae,  as  chanted  in  the  service  for  the  dead,  so  strongly  affected  him,  that 
he  determined  to  abandon  the  world.  He  afterwards  became  Bishop  of  Saluzzo.  (Biogr. 
Diet,  of  Soc.  Diff.  Usef.  Kn.    "  Ancina:') 

The  authorship  of  the  hymn  is  generally  ascribed   to  one  of  the  Franciscan  order,  or   the 
Minorites  as  they  are  also  called.     Thomas  de  Celano,  the  friend  and  biographer  of  Francis  of 
Assisi,  the  founder  of  this  order,  and  who  lived  in  the  thirteenth  century,  is  generally  supposed  to 
have  written  it  about  the  year  1250.     (  Gieseler's  Ch.  Hist.  Am.  Ed.  II.  288.    Knapp.  Liederschatz 
II.  870.     Tholuck  and  Daniel,  ut  supra.)    Celano,  it  may  be  observed  by  the  way,   is  one  of 
those  on  whose  authority  is  made  to  rest  the  legend  that  Francis  received  the  stigmata  or  miracu- 
lous impressions  of  Christ's  wounds.    (Jlban  Butler,  Lives  of  Saints.)    It  has  also  been  attributed 
to  others  of  the  same  order,  Matthew  of  Aquasparta,  a  general  of  the  Minorites,  who  died  with 
the  rank  of  Cardinal,  in  1302,   and  Frangipani,  a   Minorite   and  a  Cardinal,  who  died  in  1294. 
{Knapp.)     Churton,  the   author  of  the  "  Early  English    Church,"  would  give  it,   however,   a 
much  earlier  origin,  or  he  has  fallen  into  a  gross  anachronism  ;  for  he  places  it  in  the  lips  of  the 
dying  Thurstan,  the  Archbishop  of  York,  who  ended  his  course  in  the  year  1140,  a  full  century 
before  the  time  generally  fixed  for  its  composition  by  T.  de  Celano.     (Churton.  Am.  Ed. p.  272.) 
Issuing  as  it  certainly  did,  from  an  age  of  great  superstition   and  corruption,  it  is  remarkable 
that  it  should  be  so  little  incrusted  with  the  prevalent  errors  of  the  time.    The  lines  "  Quern  pa- 
tronum  rogaturus,  Cum  viz  Justus  sit  securus  V  seem  almost  a  renunciation  of  the  Romish  doctrine 
of  the  advocacy  of  saints.     Like  the  Imitation  of  Christ  by  Thomas  aKempis,  it  remains  as  a 
monument  of  the  truth,  that  in  ages  of  general  declension,  God  had  his  own  bidden  ones,  and  that 
beneath  the  drifting  and   accumulating  mass  of  heresies  and  human  inventions  and  traditions, 
there  was  an  under-current  of  simple  faith  in  Christ,  that  kept  alive  and  verdant  some  less  noticed 
portions  of  the  blighted  vineyard  of  the  church.    If  really  the  work  of  the  historian  of  the   stig- 
mata of  the   fanatical  Francis  of  Assisi,  it  affords  another  of  the  many  examples  that  show   how 
much  excellence  and  how  much  error  may  exist  together. 

A  composition  that  has,  with  ho  effort  at  elaboration  or  poetic  art,  so  long  attracted  the  admira- 
tion of  poets  like  Goethe  and  Scott,  distinguished  for  their  skill  in  the  mere  art;  and  yet  met 
also  the  wants  and  won  the  sympathies  of  men  who,  disregarding  poetry,  looked  mainly  to  piety  of 
semiment — a  poem  that  his  thus  united  the  suffrages  of  religion  and  taste,  deserves  some  study, 
as  a  model,  in  that  walk  of  such  difficulty  and  dignity,  the  walk  of  sacred  poetry. 

The  Latin  original  has,  within  a  few  years,  become  accessible  to  American  readers  in  Edwards 
and  Park's  German  Selections,  p.  185 ;  in  the  Encyclopaedia  Americana,  art.  (Dies  Ira:,)  ;  and  in 
Isaac  Williams'  Thoughts  in  Past  Years,  Am.  Ed.  p.  309.  The  readings  of  the  first  stanza  at 
Rome  and  Paris  differ.  The  former  has  as  the  second  line,  "  Crucis  expandens  vexilla,"  in  allu- 
sion to  the  old  itomish  tradition  that  the  "sign  of  the  Son  of  Man,"  to  be  seen  in  the  heavens  ou 
his  coming  to  judgment,  is  the  cross.  The  latter,  omitting  this  line,  has  for  its  third  line,  "  Teste 
David  cum  Sibylla"  a  reference  to  the  Sybilline  oracles,  whose  genuineness  as  Christian  pro- 
phecies seems  never  in  the  Mediaeval  times  to  have  been  questioned,  and  whose  authority  Bishop 
Horsley  has  sought  to  revive.  (Journee  du  Chretien,  Paris,  1810,  pp.  82,  84.)  This  seems  the 
more  ancient,  and  to  Protestants,  is  perhaps  the  less  objectionable  reading.  The  closing  sentence, 
*•  Pie  Jesu,  Domine,  Dona  eis  requiem,  Amen,"  is  a  prayer  for  the  dead  ;  but  not  having  the 
rhymes  of  the  rest,  we  should  suppose  the  words  rather  a  part  of  the  burial  service  into  which 
the  hymn  is  inlaid,  than  a  portion  originally  of  the  hymn  itself. 


49 

mighty  heart,  in  its  strong  apprehensions,  are  yet  to  be  felt,  as  after  the 
lapse  of  centuries,  it  seems  yet  to  throb  and  heave  under  the  pages  of  the 
epistles.  Value  not  any  professional  learning  apart  from  an  experimental 
knowledge  of-  the  cross  of  Christ.  Remember  that  the  man  mighty  in 
prayer,  and  full  of  the  Holy.  Ghost,  and  who  knows,  as  a  preacher,  but  the 
scriptures  in  his  own  vernacular  tongue,  may  take  his  place  as  a  theolo- 
gian'7 aDd  a  pastor,  far  above  you,  with  all  your  knowledge  of  criticism 
and  languages,  if  you  rely  on  that  learning  and  neglect  to  cultivate  piety. 
The  true  exegesis  of  the  Scriptures  is,  after  all,  that  put  upon  them  by  the 
Holy  Spirit  who  first  indited  them,  as  He  unfolds  them  to  the  prayerful 
student,  and  he  who  puts  himself,  with  few  earthly  helps,  under  that 
teaching,  will  profit  more  than  the  man  who  with  all  earthly  helps,  neg- 
lects that  teaching.  Steep  then  all  your  attainments  in  prayer.  And  never 
so  far  forget  your  obligations  to  true  learning,  and  your  vows  to  Christ, 
as  to  speak  or  think  lightly  of  the  devout,  though  less  learned  student  of 

i7  We  may  well  ponder  the  language  upon  this  subject  of  a  scholar  who  is  not  liable  to  the  impu- 
tation of  enthusiasm,  ignorance  or  partiality.  Speaking  of  the  Bereans  who  searched  the  scrip- 
tures, Bishop  Horsley,  in  his  Nine  Sermons  on  the  Resurrection,  fyc.  (New-York,  1816,  pp.  165, 
166,)  takes  occasion  to  remark  upoa  the  knowledge  that  may  be  gained  from  the  mere  English 
version,  by  a  collation  diligent  and  prayerful,  of  its  parallel  passages.  "It  is  incredible  to  any 
one  who  has  not  in  some  degree  made  the  experiment,  what  a  proficiency  may  be  made  in  that 
knowledge  which  maketh  wise  unto  salvation,  by  studying  the  scriptures  in  this  manner,  without 
any  other  commentary  or  exposition  than  what  the  different  parts  of  the  sacred  volume  mutually 
furnish  for  each  other.  I  will  not  scruple  to  assert  that  the  most  illiterate  Christian,  if  he  can  but 
read  his  English  bible,  and  will  take  the  pains  to  read  it  in  this  manner,  will  not  only  attain  all 
that  practical  knowledge  which  is  necessary  to  his  salvation,  but  by  God's  blessing,  he  will  be- 
come learned  in  evert/  thing  relating  to  his  religion  in  such  degree,  that  he  will  not  be  liable  to 
be  misled,  either  by  the  refined  arguments,  or  the  false  assertions  of  those  who  endeavor  to 
ingraft  their  own  opinion  upon  the  oracles  of  God.  He  may  safely  be  ignorant  of  all  philosophy 
except  what  is  to  be  learned  from  the  sacred  books  ;  which  indeed  contain  the  highest  philosophy 
adapted  to  the  lowest  apprehensions.  He  may  safely  remain  ignorant  of  all  history,  except  so 
much  of  the  history  of  the  first  ages  of  the  Jewish  and  of  the  Christian  church,  as  is  to  be  gath- 
ered from  the  canonical  books  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament.  Let  him  study  these  in  the  manner 
I  recommend,  and  let  him  never  cease  to  pray  for  the  illumination  of  that  Spirit  by  which  these 
books  were  dictated  ;  and  the  whole  compass  of  abstruse  philosophy  and  recondite  history  shall 
furnish  no  argument  with  which  the  perverse  will  of  man  shall  be  able  to  shake  this  learned  Chris- 
tian's faith." 

This  testimony  as  to  the  amount  of  theological  science  to  be  attained  from  the  study  of  the 
English  version,  has  the  more  force,  coming  as  it  does  from  a  controversialist  of  the  highest  rank, 
a  scholar  of  groat  robustness  of  intellect,  and  eminent  for  his  attainments  not  only  in  biblical 
criticism,  but  also  in  physical  science  ;  and  who  was  known,  withal,  to  have  few  sympathies  with 
Methodists  and  the  dissenters  of  England,  and  their  pious  but  often  uneducated  ministry.  The  editor 
of  the  works  of  Sir  Isaac  Xewtor.,  the  chaplain  of  Bishop  Lowth,  and  the  antagonist  of  Priestley 
was  no  vulgar  scholar.  Orme  has  said  of  him,  that  he  "  never  wrote  what  did  not  deserve  to  be 
read,"  and  characterizes  him  as  "stern,  bold,  clear  and  brilliant,  often  elegant,  sometimes  argu- 
mentative, and  always  original,  and  as  a  critic,  learned  but  dogmatic."  ( Bibliotheca  Biblica,  p. 
249.)  Such  a  man  was  little  likely  to  indulge  in  language  of  undue  disparagement  as  to  those 
literary  advantages  in' which  he  himself  so  abounded.  We  allude  hereto  his  testimony,  only  for 
the  sake  of  enforcing  a  protest  we  would,  here  and  elsewhere,  now  and  at  all  times,  make  against 
the  language  of  depreciation,  sometimes  incautiously  used,  regarding  the  competency  as  theolo- 
g;ans,of  some  of  our  ministers  who  have  missed  the  advantages  of  a  classical  education;  but 
who  are  yet  vigorous  thinkers,  and  prayerful  and  most  diligent  students  of  the  English  version. 
We  must  record  our  humble  dissent  from  such  sweeping,  censure  and  depreciation,  and  while 
the  name  and  memory  of  Andrew  Fuller  remain,  we  scarce  need  to  quote  even  the  authority  of 
Horsley  in  our  favor,  who  with  all  his  stores  of  learning  and  his  vigorous  genius,  was  certainly  not 
a  sounder  or  abler  theologian  than  the  Kettering  pastor. 

7 


50 

the  scriptures,  who  bears  meekly,  and  commends  earnestly  that  cross  it 
is  your  business  and  his,  in  common,  to  exemplify  and  extol  in  the  eyes 
of  the  world. 

Lastly,  let  that  cross  be  your  pattern.  Let  Christ  and  him  crucified, 
be  not  a  mere  phrase  or  profession,  but  a  living  reality.  That  sacrifice 
on  the  cross  was  the  embodiment  of  all  true  glory,  and  the  concentration 
of  all  moral  excellence.  Be  prepared  to  suffer  in  the  school  of  Christ. 
"  If  we  suffer,  we  shall  also  reign  with  him."  Such  is  the  law  of  success 
in  the  world  of  mind  and  of  eternity.  Remember  that  your  rest,  and  your 
reward  and  your  record  are  not  here,  as  His  were  not  here.  It  was  not 
that  you  might  seek  a  snug  parish  and  a  fat  salary,  that  the  Master  en- 
listed you — not  that  you  might  gather  round  you  the  flatteries,  and  become 
the  idol  of  an  attached  church  and  an  admiring  congregation.  You  were 
bought  by  the  agonies  and  shame  of  Calvary  for  a  sterner  task.  You  are 
not  carpet-knights,  come  out  to  shiver  a  lance  in  sport ;  the  actors  in  some 
gay  tournament,  where  "ladies'  eyes  rain  influence."  Your  work  is  a  sad 
reality  in  a  world  of  sin  and  wo,  where  you  are  called  to  a  continuous 
and  perilous  onset,  fighting  against  principalities  and  powers,  and  spiritual 
wickedness  in  high  places ;  and  the  field  around  you  is  strewn  with  many 
a  memorial  of  defeated  hope,  of  successful  temptation,  and  exulting  wick- 
edness. You  will  not  then  content  yourself  with  a  mere  decorous,  dozing 
and  perfunctory  discharge  of  your  weekly  task -work  in  the  pulpit.  You 
are  a  man  of  the  cross — it  will  be  your  aim  to  train  up  the  churches  to  the 
same  standard  and  in  the  same  spirit.  They  will  learn  that  the  charity  of 
the  cross  is  one  seeking  rather  to  enrich  others,  than  to  hoard  for  itself. 
When  the  churches  are  more  thoroughly  pervaded  by  this  spirit,  there 
will  be  no  longer  a  lack  of  funds  or  of  laborers  for  our  foreign  missions ; 
nor  will  the  nations  rush  by  myriads  into  hell,  whilst  the  church  is  grudg- 
ingly telling  out  her  few  dollars  for  the  work  of  evangelization,  and  calcu* 
lating  how  much  money  may  be  saved  from  the  expense  of  the  world's 
salvation,  not  economizing  for  the  cross,  so  much  as  economizing  from  its 
demands.  You  will  remind  the  churches  that  they  were  enlisted  beneath 
the  gory  cross,  the  badge  of  the  Master's  anguish  and  shame,  that,  as  far 
as  man  is  concerned,  they  might  rather  give  than  receive ; — that  no  vulgar 
pangs  bought  their  peace  ;  and  it  was  no  easy  task  for  their  Lord  to  pur- 
chase for  them  their  hope  of  Heaven.  If  impelled  and  permitted  yourselves 
to  go  forth  to  the  heathen,  you  will  look  to  Golgotha,  and  find  there  motives 
whose  impulsive  power  is  never  spent,  and  an  example,  whose  self-sacri- 
ficing benevolence  can  never  be  rivalled.  It  is  one  of  the  traditions  of  the 
age  of  chivalry,  that  a  Scottish  king,  when  dying,  bequeathed  his  heart  to 
the  most  trusted  and  beloved  of  his  nobles  to  be  carried  to  Palestine.  En- 
closing the  precious  deposit  in  a  golden  case,  and  suspending  it  from  his 
neck,  the  knight  went  out  with  his  companions.  He  found  himself,  when 
on  his  way  to  Syria,  hardly  pressed  in  battle  by  the  Moors  of  Spain.  To 
animate  himself  to  supernatural  efforts  as  it  were,  that  he  might  break 
through  his  thronging  foes,  he  snatched  the  charge  intrusted  to  him  from 
his  neck,  and  flinging  it  into  the  midst  of  his  enemies,  exclaimed,  "Forth, 


51 

heart  of  Bruce  as  thon  wast  wont,  and  Douglas  will  follow  thee  or  die  t" 
and  so  he  perished  in  the  endeavor  to  reclaim  it  from  the  trampling  feet  of 
the  infidels,  and  to  force  his  own  way  out.  Even  such,  will  you  feel  your 
own  position  to  be  when  encountering  the  hosts  of  heathenism.  Your 
Master's  heart  has  flung  itself  in  advance  of  your  steps.  In  the  rushing 
crowds  that  withstand  you,  there  is  not  one  whom  that  heart  has  not  cared 
for  and  pitied,  however  hostile  and  debased,  unlovely  and  vile.  It  is  your 
business  to  follow  the  leadings  of  His  heart,  to  pluck  it,  as  it  were,  from  be- 
neath the  feet  of  those  who,  in  ignorance  and  enmity  would  tread  it  into 
the  dust.  From  the  cross,  as  from  a  lofty  eminence,  it  has  cast  itself 
abroad  among  these  "armies  of  the  aliens."  And  not  like  Douglas,  is  it 
yours  to  follow  it  and  die,  you  follow  it  and  live.  You  follow  it  and  the 
heathen  live.  And  whether  your  post  be  at  home  or  abroad,  among  the 
destitution  of  the  West,  or  that  of  the  ancient  East,  whenever  glory, 
ease,  or  wealth  may  seek  to  lure  you  aside  from  your  work,  look  to  that 
cross,  and  remember  him  who  hung  there  in  agony  for  your  sins.  Let  the 
look  which  broke  Peter's  heart,  check  your  first  infirmity  of  purpose,  recal 
each  wandering  thought,  and  rally  anew  all  the  powers  of  your  fainting 
spirit.     Be  Paul's  determination  yours.     "  God  forbid  that  I  should 

GLORY    SAVE  IN  THE    CROSS    OF    OUR  LORD    JeSUS    CHRIST,    BY  WHICH18 
THE  WORLD  IS   CRUCIFIED  UNTO  ME,  AND  I  UNTO  THE  WORLD." 

May  we  all  believe  in,  and  bear  that  cross  here,  that  it  may  bear  us  up 
in  the  day  of  the  world's  doom. 


'8  ««  Whereby."     Versions  of  Tyndale,  Cranmer,  and   Geneva,  and  not  "  by  ickom,"  as   the 
Rbemish  and  the  English  Rec.  Version. 


